Description

The bpftool and libbpf packages are similar in many aspects - both are userspace components whose source code lives in the Linux kernel tree. Upstream even declares bpftool being a "front-end" of libbpf and they are released in lockstep - bpftool version is deduced from the libbpf version. Yet, RHEL is currently packaging them in a rather different way - the bpftool package is built as a part of the kernel build while libbpf has a separate RPM repository and is usually rebuilt once per release cycle.

This discrepancy may lead to multiple problems, such as bpftool/libbpf versions not being in sync during the release cycle. In addition, bpftool is (unnecessarily) repeatedly rebuilt with each kernel update.

This epic is to track activities and bugs related to unification of packaging of bpftool and libbpf. The best approach seems to be to move packaging of bpftool out of the kernel specfile (either to a separate repo or to the libbpf repo).

What SSTs and Layered Product teams should review this?