ring-0.17.13 build failure on amazonlinux:2 amd64

[wez]

I know that your changelog says that you expect folks to upgrade binutils for this update, but I wanted to share that it fails to build on amazonlinux:2 now when the prior version (0.17.8) compiled fine. I found this because dependabot opened a PR just for this bump and it failed.

The errors look like this:

cargo:warning=/root/.cargo/registry/src/index.crates.io-1949cf8c6b5b557f/ring-0.17.13/pregenerated/aes-gcm-avx2-x86_64-elf.S:86: Error: operand type mismatch for `vpclmulqdq'

(link to full output at https://woodpecker.wezfurlong.org/repos/1/pipeline/361/13)

amazonlinux:2 is a bit of a crusty environment and I'm not eager to try to install more modern binutils there!

If there is no path forward without a newer toolchain, then the pragmatist in me thinks that you might want to consider yanking 0.17.x that has these build changes and publishing as 0.18.0 instead because upgrading from 0.17.8 to 0.17.13 is presently a build-breaking change that feels like it is against the spirit of a semver-compatible upgrade.

[wez]

FWIW, I did see #2461 which has a lot of similarities, but this is not cross compiling and is for a linux target instead, so I opened this one up separately. You are of course welcome to merge/close or otherwise update as you see fit!

[briansmith]

I think the best thing to do is to file an issue with AWS asking them to upgrade binutils in that distro. I think if a customer requests it, they will do it.

[briansmith]

From https://aws.amazon.com/amazon-linux-2/?amazon-linux-whats-new.sort-by=item.additionalFields.postDateTime&amazon-linux-whats-new.sort-order=desc:

Amazon Linux 2 offers long-term support. Developers, IT administrators, and ISVs get the predictability and stability of a long-term support (LTS) release, but without compromising access to the latest versions of popular software packages.

[briansmith]

It looks like they already upgraded binutils to 2.39 in Amazon Linux 2023; see https://docs.aws.amazon.com/linux/al2023/release-notes/all-packages-AL2023.6.html.

[wez]

Yeah, the amazonlinux:2023 build is fine, the issue is just with amazonlinux:2.

FWIW, my intent here is not to make you find a way to support amazonlinux:2 but rather to get a sense of whether amazonlinux:2 is supportable.

I don't directly use it, but we have a build for it in CI because a prospective customer indicated that they wanted us to support our stuff on that platform. Personally, I'd prefer to push them to something newer because amazonlinux:2 is very long in the tooth now, and I don't think anyone should really be spending any material amount of time sweating over it. That includes dealing with AWS customer support on this (we're still squeaking through on free credits ourselves, so I don't expect them to move very quickly for us). I don't even know if that prospective customer did end up running on that platform, or even end up sponsoring us.

With that in mind, if your official response is "suck it up, 0.17 requires a more modern binutils", that is acceptable to me and my response will be to delete amazonlinux:2 from CI :)

I do still think you should consider a semver bump to in this sort of situation; not because I'm a pedant, just from the perspective of it giving you more breathing room when making this sort of change where you might expect folks to have some issues!

Thank you for looking after this crate!

[briansmith]

With that in mind, if your official response is "suck it up, 0.17 requires a more modern binutils", that is acceptable to me and my response will be to delete amazonlinux:2 from CI :)

Definitely I don't want to convey any negativity like that. At the same time, we can't let these ancient Linux distros determine our versioning policies or slow down our progress.

I think if somebody is really motivated to find a workaround, then maybe they might tackle #2463. Maybe there is a very easy workaround that we can implement.

[briansmith]

When I look at https://docs.aws.amazon.com/linux/al2023/release-notes/vercmp-AL2-AL2023.6.html it looks like they already have a newer version of binutils available? Maybe if you use gcc10 as the C compiler it will work?

[wez]

Definitely I don't want to convey any negativity like that. At the same time, we can't let these ancient Linux distros determine our versioning policies or slow down our progress.

Oh for sure; I was being tongue-in-cheek there: I'm honestly fine with the increased requirements because I think that there is no truly good reason to be on amazonlinux:2 (rather than amazonlinux:2023) in 2025.

[wez]

When I look at https://docs.aws.amazon.com/linux/al2023/release-notes/vercmp-AL2-AL2023.6.html it looks like they already have a newer version of binutils available? Maybe if you use gcc10 as the C compiler it will work?

That appears to be for amazonlinux:2023 rather than amazonlinux:2. 2023 is already passing our CI

[briansmith]

It seems like there is a package named gcc10-binutils in AL2 that has binutils-2.35 in it? Not sure if 2.35 is good enough though.

[wez]

Ah, I see. I can confirm that 2.35 is present there, but wrangling the environment to run our own full build will take some effort that I can't justify right now. FWIW, if you have docker available, you can fairly easily drop in to amazonlinux:2:

$ docker run --rm -it amazonlinux:2 bash
bash-4.2#

I did confirm just now that installing:

• gcc10-binutils
• gcc10

Allows running CC=gcc10-cc cargo check for the current state of main in the ring repo.

I think that from your perspective, this issue can be closed in favor of your followup #2463

[azjezz]

I just encountered the same issue cross compiling for linux: https://github.com/carthage-software/mago/actions/runs/13735422342/job/38418652700

updated for those having similar issue: we simply disabled cross for the failing target, and it works: carthage-software/mago@12beb0c