GCC Plugin Infrastructure Still Being Worked On For The Linux Kernel

As part of the Linux Foundation's Core Infrastructure Initiative, kernel developers continue working on a GCC plugin infrastructure for use by the Linux kernel with this code originally developed by the GrSecurity/PaX maintainers.

This GCC plugin infrastructure is about providing extra features to the compiler, such as for runtime instrumentation and static analysis. The code they're working on for the Linux kernel supports GCC 4.5 and newer for this feature of adding extra functionality to the kernel.

Two examples of the plugins include one that computes the cyclomatic complexity of each function and then a sancov plugin to insert __sanitizer_cov_trace_pc() calls at the start of basic blocks.

If you are interested in this GCC plugin infrastructure code they've been baking for a while now, the eighth version of these patches just went up for review on the Linux kernel mailing list.