When one of the linking passes fails, additional intermediate files are
still in place. Having them available for analysis of the underlying
problem can be pretty helpful. Collect some into a new intermediates/
directory. (Nothing new will be collected if linking succeeds.)

While there also make sure xen-syms is collected (into binaries/). This
is rather more useful for analysis of possible problems than its stripped
counterpart.

Signed-off-by: Jan Beulich <jbeulich@suse.com>
---
As the issue this is meant to help with didn't re-occur with this in
place, the new logic wasn't really tested yet.

--- a/automation/gitlab-ci/build.yaml
+++ b/automation/gitlab-ci/build.yaml
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
   artifacts:
     paths:
       - binaries/
+      - intermediates/
       - xen-config
       - xen-cppcheck.txt
       - '*.log'
--- a/automation/scripts/build
+++ b/automation/scripts/build
@@ -41,18 +41,24 @@ fi
 # to exit early -- bash is invoked with -e.
 cp xen/.config xen-config
 
-# Directory for the artefacts to be dumped into
-mkdir -p binaries
+# Directories for the artefacts to be dumped into
+mkdir -p binaries intermediates
 
 collect_xen_artefacts()
 {
     local f
 
-    for f in xen/xen xen/xen.efi; do
+    for f in xen/xen xen/xen-syms xen/xen.efi; do
         if [[ -f $f ]]; then
             cp $f binaries/
         fi
     done
+
+    for f in xen/.xen-syms.* xen/.xen.efi.*; do
+        if [[ -f $f ]]; then
+            cp $f intermediates/
+        fi
+    done
 }
 
 if [[ "${CPPCHECK}" == "y" ]] && [[ "${HYPERVISOR_ONLY}" == "y" ]]; then

On Wed, 6 May 2026, Jan Beulich wrote:
> When one of the linking passes fails, additional intermediate files are
> still in place. Having them available for analysis of the underlying
> problem can be pretty helpful. Collect some into a new intermediates/
> directory. (Nothing new will be collected if linking succeeds.)
> 
> While there also make sure xen-syms is collected (into binaries/). This
> is rather more useful for analysis of possible problems than its stripped
> counterpart.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Jan Beulich <jbeulich@suse.com>
> ---
> As the issue this is meant to help with didn't re-occur with this in
> place, the new logic wasn't really tested yet.

It looks OK but please provide a link to a successful pipeline

Reviewed-by: Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@kernel.org>


> --- a/automation/gitlab-ci/build.yaml
> +++ b/automation/gitlab-ci/build.yaml
> @@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
>    artifacts:
>      paths:
>        - binaries/
> +      - intermediates/
>        - xen-config
>        - xen-cppcheck.txt
>        - '*.log'
> --- a/automation/scripts/build
> +++ b/automation/scripts/build
> @@ -41,18 +41,24 @@ fi
>  # to exit early -- bash is invoked with -e.
>  cp xen/.config xen-config
>  
> -# Directory for the artefacts to be dumped into
> -mkdir -p binaries
> +# Directories for the artefacts to be dumped into
> +mkdir -p binaries intermediates
>  
>  collect_xen_artefacts()
>  {
>      local f
>  
> -    for f in xen/xen xen/xen.efi; do
> +    for f in xen/xen xen/xen-syms xen/xen.efi; do
>          if [[ -f $f ]]; then
>              cp $f binaries/
>          fi
>      done
> +
> +    for f in xen/.xen-syms.* xen/.xen.efi.*; do
> +        if [[ -f $f ]]; then
> +            cp $f intermediates/
> +        fi
> +    done
>  }
>  
>  if [[ "${CPPCHECK}" == "y" ]] && [[ "${HYPERVISOR_ONLY}" == "y" ]]; then
>

On Wed, 6 May 2026, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
> On Wed, 6 May 2026, Jan Beulich wrote:
> > When one of the linking passes fails, additional intermediate files are
> > still in place. Having them available for analysis of the underlying
> > problem can be pretty helpful. Collect some into a new intermediates/
> > directory. (Nothing new will be collected if linking succeeds.)
> > 
> > While there also make sure xen-syms is collected (into binaries/). This
> > is rather more useful for analysis of possible problems than its stripped
> > counterpart.
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Jan Beulich <jbeulich@suse.com>
> > ---
> > As the issue this is meant to help with didn't re-occur with this in
> > place, the new logic wasn't really tested yet.
> 
> It looks OK but please provide a link to a successful pipeline
> 
> Reviewed-by: Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@kernel.org>

Actually, I see that the build script is run with bash -ex so I wonder
if collect_xen_artefacts would even run if make fails. I think we need: 

trap collect_xen_artefacts EXIT


> > --- a/automation/gitlab-ci/build.yaml
> > +++ b/automation/gitlab-ci/build.yaml
> > @@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
> >    artifacts:
> >      paths:
> >        - binaries/
> > +      - intermediates/
> >        - xen-config
> >        - xen-cppcheck.txt
> >        - '*.log'
> > --- a/automation/scripts/build
> > +++ b/automation/scripts/build
> > @@ -41,18 +41,24 @@ fi
> >  # to exit early -- bash is invoked with -e.
> >  cp xen/.config xen-config
> >  
> > -# Directory for the artefacts to be dumped into
> > -mkdir -p binaries
> > +# Directories for the artefacts to be dumped into
> > +mkdir -p binaries intermediates
> >  
> >  collect_xen_artefacts()
> >  {
> >      local f
> >  
> > -    for f in xen/xen xen/xen.efi; do
> > +    for f in xen/xen xen/xen-syms xen/xen.efi; do
> >          if [[ -f $f ]]; then
> >              cp $f binaries/
> >          fi
> >      done
> > +
> > +    for f in xen/.xen-syms.* xen/.xen.efi.*; do
> > +        if [[ -f $f ]]; then
> > +            cp $f intermediates/
> > +        fi
> > +    done
> >  }
> >  
> >  if [[ "${CPPCHECK}" == "y" ]] && [[ "${HYPERVISOR_ONLY}" == "y" ]]; then
> > 
>

On 07.05.2026 02:54, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
> On Wed, 6 May 2026, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
>> On Wed, 6 May 2026, Jan Beulich wrote:
>>> When one of the linking passes fails, additional intermediate files are
>>> still in place. Having them available for analysis of the underlying
>>> problem can be pretty helpful. Collect some into a new intermediates/
>>> directory. (Nothing new will be collected if linking succeeds.)
>>>
>>> While there also make sure xen-syms is collected (into binaries/). This
>>> is rather more useful for analysis of possible problems than its stripped
>>> counterpart.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Jan Beulich <jbeulich@suse.com>
>>> ---
>>> As the issue this is meant to help with didn't re-occur with this in
>>> place, the new logic wasn't really tested yet.
>>
>> It looks OK but please provide a link to a successful pipeline

Well, I had it in use in
https://gitlab.com/xen-project/hardware/xen-staging/-/pipelines/2503967215
but does that count, when the issue the change is for didn't really occur?
For now I can't test the additions without having a way to trigger that
symbol table issue (or any other problem at one of the linking stages).
Short of artificially breaking things, that is.

>> Reviewed-by: Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@kernel.org>

Thanks, but the above wants clarifying first, and the below suggests you
actually meant to take back the R-b.

> Actually, I see that the build script is run with bash -ex so I wonder
> if collect_xen_artefacts would even run if make fails. I think we need: 
> 
> trap collect_xen_artefacts EXIT

I don't feel comfortable making such a change. Furthermore it's unrelated,
as it would mean that on other build failures successfully created final
binaries wouldn't be collected either (after all on x86 it may be only one
of the two links that failed). Plus then it would likely want doing
differently, by making the EXIT hook invoke a new
collect_xen_intermediates(), leaving collect_xen_artefacts() unaltered
(except for the xen-syms addition there)?

Jan

On Thu, 7 May 2026, Jan Beulich wrote:
> On 07.05.2026 02:54, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
> > On Wed, 6 May 2026, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
> >> On Wed, 6 May 2026, Jan Beulich wrote:
> >>> When one of the linking passes fails, additional intermediate files are
> >>> still in place. Having them available for analysis of the underlying
> >>> problem can be pretty helpful. Collect some into a new intermediates/
> >>> directory. (Nothing new will be collected if linking succeeds.)
> >>>
> >>> While there also make sure xen-syms is collected (into binaries/). This
> >>> is rather more useful for analysis of possible problems than its stripped
> >>> counterpart.
> >>>
> >>> Signed-off-by: Jan Beulich <jbeulich@suse.com>
> >>> ---
> >>> As the issue this is meant to help with didn't re-occur with this in
> >>> place, the new logic wasn't really tested yet.
> >>
> >> It looks OK but please provide a link to a successful pipeline
> 
> Well, I had it in use in
> https://gitlab.com/xen-project/hardware/xen-staging/-/pipelines/2503967215
> but does that count, when the issue the change is for didn't really occur?
> For now I can't test the additions without having a way to trigger that
> symbol table issue (or any other problem at one of the linking stages).
> Short of artificially breaking things, that is.

Please break it on purpose. Just push to a temporary branch.


> >> Reviewed-by: Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@kernel.org>
> 
> Thanks, but the above wants clarifying first, and the below suggests you
> actually meant to take back the R-b.
> 
> > Actually, I see that the build script is run with bash -ex so I wonder
> > if collect_xen_artefacts would even run if make fails. I think we need: 
> > 
> > trap collect_xen_artefacts EXIT
> 
> I don't feel comfortable making such a change. Furthermore it's unrelated,
> as it would mean that on other build failures successfully created final
> binaries wouldn't be collected either (after all on x86 it may be only one
> of the two links that failed). Plus then it would likely want doing
> differently, by making the EXIT hook invoke a new
> collect_xen_intermediates(), leaving collect_xen_artefacts() unaltered
> (except for the xen-syms addition there)?

"trap collect_xen_artefacts EXIT" was just a quick suggestion to explain
the type of change that would be needed to make this work, because as I
understand it, it does not work now.

From your comment I don't understand if you think that the patch as is
would work as intended or you agree with my comment that it would not
work.

On 07.05.2026 23:44, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
> On Thu, 7 May 2026, Jan Beulich wrote:
>> On 07.05.2026 02:54, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
>>> On Wed, 6 May 2026, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 6 May 2026, Jan Beulich wrote:
>>>>> When one of the linking passes fails, additional intermediate files are
>>>>> still in place. Having them available for analysis of the underlying
>>>>> problem can be pretty helpful. Collect some into a new intermediates/
>>>>> directory. (Nothing new will be collected if linking succeeds.)
>>>>>
>>>>> While there also make sure xen-syms is collected (into binaries/). This
>>>>> is rather more useful for analysis of possible problems than its stripped
>>>>> counterpart.
>>>>>
>>>>> Signed-off-by: Jan Beulich <jbeulich@suse.com>
>>>>> ---
>>>>> As the issue this is meant to help with didn't re-occur with this in
>>>>> place, the new logic wasn't really tested yet.
>>>>
>>>> It looks OK but please provide a link to a successful pipeline
>>
>> Well, I had it in use in
>> https://gitlab.com/xen-project/hardware/xen-staging/-/pipelines/2503967215
>> but does that count, when the issue the change is for didn't really occur?
>> For now I can't test the additions without having a way to trigger that
>> symbol table issue (or any other problem at one of the linking stages).
>> Short of artificially breaking things, that is.
> 
> Please break it on purpose. Just push to a temporary branch.
> 
> 
>>>> Reviewed-by: Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@kernel.org>
>>
>> Thanks, but the above wants clarifying first, and the below suggests you
>> actually meant to take back the R-b.
>>
>>> Actually, I see that the build script is run with bash -ex so I wonder
>>> if collect_xen_artefacts would even run if make fails. I think we need: 
>>>
>>> trap collect_xen_artefacts EXIT
>>
>> I don't feel comfortable making such a change. Furthermore it's unrelated,
>> as it would mean that on other build failures successfully created final
>> binaries wouldn't be collected either (after all on x86 it may be only one
>> of the two links that failed). Plus then it would likely want doing
>> differently, by making the EXIT hook invoke a new
>> collect_xen_intermediates(), leaving collect_xen_artefacts() unaltered
>> (except for the xen-syms addition there)?
> 
> "trap collect_xen_artefacts EXIT" was just a quick suggestion to explain
> the type of change that would be needed to make this work, because as I
> understand it, it does not work now.
> 
> From your comment I don't understand if you think that the patch as is
> would work as intended or you agree with my comment that it would not
> work.

Given the -e passed to bash, I don't expect it to work as is. However, I
question this behavior. Exiting on error may be okay for any of the
preparatory commands, but exiting on failure of make feels dubious [1].
Hence I'm unsure which way to deal with that aspect (i.e. I'd prefer to
latch the main make's status, collect artifacts, and then exit the
script with make's status).

Somewhat related: Why is it that collect_xen_artefacts is invoked three
times, rather than just once at the very bottom of the script? At which
point it wouldn't even need to be a function.

Jan

[1] E.g. a failed tools build may also be easier to analyze if the
already built components (libraries in particular) were collected.

On Fri, 8 May 2026, Jan Beulich wrote:
> On 07.05.2026 23:44, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
> > On Thu, 7 May 2026, Jan Beulich wrote:
> >> On 07.05.2026 02:54, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
> >>> On Wed, 6 May 2026, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
> >>>> On Wed, 6 May 2026, Jan Beulich wrote:
> >>>>> When one of the linking passes fails, additional intermediate files are
> >>>>> still in place. Having them available for analysis of the underlying
> >>>>> problem can be pretty helpful. Collect some into a new intermediates/
> >>>>> directory. (Nothing new will be collected if linking succeeds.)
> >>>>>
> >>>>> While there also make sure xen-syms is collected (into binaries/). This
> >>>>> is rather more useful for analysis of possible problems than its stripped
> >>>>> counterpart.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Signed-off-by: Jan Beulich <jbeulich@suse.com>
> >>>>> ---
> >>>>> As the issue this is meant to help with didn't re-occur with this in
> >>>>> place, the new logic wasn't really tested yet.
> >>>>
> >>>> It looks OK but please provide a link to a successful pipeline
> >>
> >> Well, I had it in use in
> >> https://gitlab.com/xen-project/hardware/xen-staging/-/pipelines/2503967215
> >> but does that count, when the issue the change is for didn't really occur?
> >> For now I can't test the additions without having a way to trigger that
> >> symbol table issue (or any other problem at one of the linking stages).
> >> Short of artificially breaking things, that is.
> > 
> > Please break it on purpose. Just push to a temporary branch.
> > 
> > 
> >>>> Reviewed-by: Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@kernel.org>
> >>
> >> Thanks, but the above wants clarifying first, and the below suggests you
> >> actually meant to take back the R-b.
> >>
> >>> Actually, I see that the build script is run with bash -ex so I wonder
> >>> if collect_xen_artefacts would even run if make fails. I think we need: 
> >>>
> >>> trap collect_xen_artefacts EXIT
> >>
> >> I don't feel comfortable making such a change. Furthermore it's unrelated,
> >> as it would mean that on other build failures successfully created final
> >> binaries wouldn't be collected either (after all on x86 it may be only one
> >> of the two links that failed). Plus then it would likely want doing
> >> differently, by making the EXIT hook invoke a new
> >> collect_xen_intermediates(), leaving collect_xen_artefacts() unaltered
> >> (except for the xen-syms addition there)?
> > 
> > "trap collect_xen_artefacts EXIT" was just a quick suggestion to explain
> > the type of change that would be needed to make this work, because as I
> > understand it, it does not work now.
> > 
> > From your comment I don't understand if you think that the patch as is
> > would work as intended or you agree with my comment that it would not
> > work.
> 
> Given the -e passed to bash, I don't expect it to work as is. However, I
> question this behavior. Exiting on error may be okay for any of the
> preparatory commands, but exiting on failure of make feels dubious [1].
> Hence I'm unsure which way to deal with that aspect (i.e. I'd prefer to
> latch the main make's status, collect artifacts, and then exit the
> script with make's status).

I am OK with your preference.


> Somewhat related: Why is it that collect_xen_artefacts is invoked three
> times, rather than just once at the very bottom of the script? At which
> point it wouldn't even need to be a function.

There doesn't seem to be a good reason



> Jan
> 
> [1] E.g. a failed tools build may also be easier to analyze if the
> already built components (libraries in particular) were collected.
>