There are various Free Software tools out there that can analyze changes to the binary interface exposed by the kernel to its module, aka KMI.

The kmidiff[1] tool is one of them. It’s based on the Libabigail[2] framework and it’s meant to compare changes to the binary KMI between two kernel trees by looking at the binaries compiled with debug info.

In this talk we are going to show how the Libabigail framework evolved from a userspace binary-centric view to a point where it now supports the analysis of Linux kernel binaries.

We are going to touch on the comparison capabilities of the framework, but also on its analysis capabilities leading to features like user-driven change report filtering. The talk will also cover some of the areas of potential future improvements.

Dodji Seketeli, Red Hat