nRF Connect SDK link error with GCC 12

[Martin Vitek]

I'm using arm-none-eabi-gcc from Fedora linux repositories. It got updated to version 12, and now it's not possible to compile the SDK - there is a problem with linking. It can be replicated, e.g. on the NRF9160 udp example with SDK version 2.1.0. It can be temporarily solved by lowering binutils to v2.37.

Problematic versions:

• arm-none-eabi-gcc-cs-1:12.2.0-1.fc36.x86_64
• arm-none-eabi-gcc-cs-c++-1:12.2.0-1.fc36.x86_64
• arm-none-eabi-binutils-cs-1:2.39-1.fc36.x86_64

[ 97%] Linking C executable ../bin/tfm_s.axf
/usr/lib/gcc/arm-none-eabi/12.2.0/../../../../arm-none-eabi/bin/ld: warning: ../bin/tfm_s.axf has a LOAD segment with RWX permissions
/usr/lib/gcc/arm-none-eabi/12.2.0/../../../../arm-none-eabi/bin/ld: warning: ../bin/tfm_s.axf has a LOAD segment with RWX permissions
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status

[Håkon Alseth]

Hi,

 

This seems to be similar to this bug report:

https://developer.trustedfirmware.org/T996

 

Using "--no-warn-rwx-segments" seems to be a workaround to this warning. I'll make the developers internally aware of this. Thank you for making us aware of this.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

 

PS: in general we recommend to use the same toolchain as we test with, which is zephyr-sdk v0.14.1 for ncs v2.1.0: https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/2.1.0/nrf/gs_installing.html#install-a-toolchain

 

Cheers,

Håkon

[Martin Vitek]

I was trying to add the flag using zephyr_ld_options(--no-warn-rwx-segments), but I wasn't successful. Do you know another way how to add it?

[Håkon Alseth]

You'll need to pass it from the compiler to the linker, which is done by adding the "-Wl," flag first. Zephyr has a macro for that, so it will look something like this:

zephyr_ld_options(${LINKERFLAGPREFIX},--no-warn-rwx-segments)

 

Again, as previously stated, I would recommend that you use the zephyr-sdk toolchain that we test the release with.

 

Kind regards,

Håkon

[Martin Vitek]

The problem is that TFM is built as a separate CMake project. Therefore, zephyr_ld_options are not passed to it.

As a fix for now, I've added --no-warn-rwx-segments to ncs/modules/tee/tf-m/trusted-firmware-m/toolchain_GNUARM.cmake:

macro(tfm_toolchain_reset_linker_flags)
    set_property(DIRECTORY PROPERTY LINK_OPTIONS "")

    add_link_options(
        --entry=Reset_Handler
        --specs=nano.specs
        LINKER:--no-warn-rwx-segments
        LINKER:-check-sections
        LINKER:-fatal-warnings
        LINKER:--gc-sections
        LINKER:--no-wchar-size-warning
        ${MEMORY_USAGE_FLAG}
    )
endmacro()