[PATCH] arm: Remove rel.dyn from SPL linker scripts

[Tom Rini]

On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 12:13:12AM +0000, ChiaWei Wang wrote:
> > From: Tom Rini <trini at konsulko.com>
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2026 5:32 AM
> > 
> > As of v2026.01, no platforms contain any rel.dyn sections in their xPL phase
> > images. Their inclusion in linker scripts initially was an oversight as part of
> > taking the full U-Boot linker scripts and modifying them down. Then in commit
> > 8b0ebe054bb3 ("arm: Update linker scripts to ensure appended device tree is
> > aligned") these sections were used to force correct alignment for the device
> > tree. This however, lead to a different problem.
> > 
> > That problem is that when we do not have a separate BSS section in SPL we
> > instead would overlay the BSS with the rel.dyn section, in the common linker
> > script case. This in turn lead to creating an incorrectly sized BSS "pad" file
> > sometimes (depending on arbitrary changes within the rest of the binary itself).
> > This in turn lead to the dtb being in the wrong location in the binary and not
> > found at run time.
> > 
> > This commit fixes a few things:
> > - Remove the rel.dyn section from all ARM SPL linker scripts.
> > - In turn, this moves the dtb alignment statement in to another section.
> > - For ast2600 which uses CONFIG_POSITION_INDEPENDENT we need to keep
> > the
> >   symbols however.
> > 
> > Tested-by: Fabio Estevam <festevam at gmail.com>
> > Reported-by: Fabio Estevam <festevam at gmail.com>
> > Co-developed-by: Ilias Apalodimas <ilias.apalodimas at linaro.org>
> > Signed-off-by: Tom Rini <trini at konsulko.com>
> > ---
> > I sent this off-list to Fabio first to confirm it finally fixed things.
> > 
> > Cc: "Chia-Wei, Wang" <chiawei_wang at aspeedtech.com>
> > Cc: Adam Ford <aford173 at gmail.com>
> > ---
> >  arch/arm/cpu/arm926ejs/mxs/u-boot-spl.lds      |  8 --------
> >  arch/arm/cpu/u-boot-spl.lds                    | 13 ++-----------
> >  arch/arm/mach-aspeed/ast2600/u-boot-spl.lds    | 16 +++++++---------
> >  board/davinci/da8xxevm/u-boot-spl-da850evm.lds |  9 ++-------
> >  4 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 35 deletions(-)
> > 
> > diff --git a/arch/arm/cpu/arm926ejs/mxs/u-boot-spl.lds
> > b/arch/arm/cpu/arm926ejs/mxs/u-boot-spl.lds
> > index b4adae272eba..ac166d1d8526 100644
> > --- a/arch/arm/cpu/arm926ejs/mxs/u-boot-spl.lds
> > +++ b/arch/arm/cpu/arm926ejs/mxs/u-boot-spl.lds
> > @@ -33,14 +33,6 @@ SECTIONS
> >  		*(.data*)
> >  	}
> > 
> > -	. = ALIGN(4);
> > -
> > -	.rel.dyn : {
> > -		__rel_dyn_start = .;
> > -		*(.rel*)
> > -		__rel_dyn_end = .;
> > -	}
> > -
> >  	.bss : {
> >  		. = ALIGN(4);
> >  		__bss_start = .;
> > diff --git a/arch/arm/cpu/u-boot-spl.lds b/arch/arm/cpu/u-boot-spl.lds index
> > d780a5060774..c578c3ebf821 100644
> > --- a/arch/arm/cpu/u-boot-spl.lds
> > +++ b/arch/arm/cpu/u-boot-spl.lds
> > @@ -41,23 +41,14 @@ SECTIONS
> >  		__binman_sym_start = .;
> >  		KEEP(*(SORT(.binman_sym*)));
> >  		__binman_sym_end = .;
> > -	}
> > -
> > -	. = ALIGN(4);
> > -
> > -	__image_copy_end = .;
> > -
> > -	.rel.dyn : {
> > -		__rel_dyn_start = .;
> > -		*(.rel*)
> > -		__rel_dyn_end = .;
> >  		. = ALIGN(8);
> >  	}
> > 
> > +	__image_copy_end = .;
> >  	_image_binary_end = .;
> >  	_end = .;
> > 
> > -	.bss __rel_dyn_start (OVERLAY) : {
> > +	.bss : {
> >  		__bss_start = .;
> >  		*(.bss*)
> >  		 . = ALIGN(8);
> > diff --git a/arch/arm/mach-aspeed/ast2600/u-boot-spl.lds
> > b/arch/arm/mach-aspeed/ast2600/u-boot-spl.lds
> > index c9664a6ce566..303ace2f61ca 100644
> > --- a/arch/arm/mach-aspeed/ast2600/u-boot-spl.lds
> > +++ b/arch/arm/mach-aspeed/ast2600/u-boot-spl.lds
> > @@ -49,19 +49,17 @@ SECTIONS
> >  		__binman_sym_start = .;
> >  		KEEP(*(SORT(.binman_sym*)));
> >  		__binman_sym_end = .;
> > +		. = ALIGN(8);
> >  	} > .nor
> > 
> > -	. = ALIGN(4);
> > +	/*
> > +	 * These platforms enable CONFIG_POSITION_INDEPENDENT and so need
> > +	 * these names. The always however hold the same value.
> > +	 */
> > +	__rel_dyn_start = .;
> > +	__rel_dyn_end = .;
> > 
> >  	__image_copy_end = .;
> > -
> > -	.rel.dyn : {
> > -		__rel_dyn_start = .;
> > -		*(.rel*)
> > -		__rel_dyn_end = .;
> > -		. = ALIGN(8);
> > -	} > .nor
> > -
> >  	_end = .;
> >  	_image_binary_end = .;
> > 
> 
> Thanks for the fix.
> Aspeed enables PIE mainly for the U-Boot execution.
> For SPL, the symbols should be fine to be the same.
> 
> Reviewed-by: "Chia-Wei, Wang" <chiawei_wang at aspeedtech.com>

Thanks. Does SPL really execute from address 0x0 on this platform? What
confused me for a moment when looking in to this is that we have a
non-zero CONFIG_TEXT_BASE but CONFIG_SPL_TEXT_BASE=0x0

-- 
Tom
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