Re: Panic on boot for armv7 on rpi2 [when was NETLINK added to kernels vs. such as failure starting]

From: Mark Millard <marklmi_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:14:57 UTC
[Note: the message this replies to does not seem to have
managed to appear on the list despite the cc: for freebsd-arm@
being in the Email that I got. May be the @net-art.cz
address is not subscribed?]

On Jan 25, 2026, at 09:12, Alex Samorukov <samm@net-art.cz> wrote:

> I think race was always there, but NETLINK needs to be in kernel to trigger it.
> 
> Which was added in FreeBSD 14, according to https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/releng/14.0/sys/arm64/conf/DEFAULTS. 
> 

Note the std.armv7 in:

# grep -r NETLINK /usr/src/sys/*/conf/
/usr/src/sys/amd64/conf/DEFAULTS:options  NETLINK # netlink(4) support
/usr/src/sys/arm/conf/std.armv7:options  NETLINK # netlink(4) support
/usr/src/sys/arm64/conf/DEFAULTS:options  NETLINK # netlink(4) support
/usr/src/sys/i386/conf/DEFAULTS:options  NETLINK # netlink(4) support
/usr/src/sys/powerpc/conf/DEFAULTS:options  NETLINK # netlink(4) support
/usr/src/sys/riscv/conf/DEFAULTS:options  NETLINK # netlink(4) support

The below also applies to sys/arm64/conf/DEFAULTS as also being
included in the MFC and the commit in main .

NETLINK is not new on the scale of the change of behavior showing
up. It was present for armv7 and the  others in 13.3-RELEASE as well,
not just 14.0-RELEASE .

May be something in NETLINK changed later or something using
NETLINK changed later?


Supporting details for finding the 13.3-RELEASE status . . .

The addition to /usr/src/sys/arm/conf/std.armv7 goes back
to 2023-01-31 (UTC) in main :

committer Alexander V. Chernikov <melifaro@FreeBSD.org> 2023-01-31 14:22:11 +0000
commit e80699a809a079c4e673940544d6ddd944e8d08e (patch)
tree 0ec9651ad94814c4930b7a23a9c72f5438bb951c /sys/arm/conf/std.armv7
parent a3baca22d0b7789a040a60f389e3c132b6e1755b (diff)
netlink: add NETLINK to GENERIC.
This is a followup of 692e19cf5195 (add netlink to GENERIC@amd64).
. . .

# ~/fbsd-branches-containing.sh e80699a809a079c4e673940544d6ddd944e8d08e
* main
  remotes/freebsd/HEAD -> freebsd/main
  remotes/freebsd/main
  remotes/freebsd/releng/14.0
  remotes/freebsd/releng/14.1
  remotes/freebsd/releng/14.2
  remotes/freebsd/releng/14.3
  remotes/freebsd/releng/15.0
  remotes/freebsd/stable/14
  remotes/freebsd/stable/15

But stable/13 has an MFC of that with its own hash:

committer Alexander V. Chernikov <melifaro@FreeBSD.org> 2023-02-09 15:52:09 +0000
commit 6058f6cc48f5ec02476bf46693673bd71291a5c0 (patch)
tree a0534e89df6ae7f8259565124a1a385ce2429964 /sys/arm/conf/std.armv7
parent 5e598a761c37dbd491579a0805968ae50ac72465 (diff)
netlink: add NETLINK to GENERIC.
This is a followup of 692e19cf5195 (add netlink to GENERIC@amd64).
. . .

# ~/fbsd-branches-containing.sh 6058f6cc48f5ec02476bf46693673bd71291a5c0
  remotes/freebsd/releng/13.2
  remotes/freebsd/releng/13.3
  remotes/freebsd/releng/13.4
  remotes/freebsd/releng/13.5
  remotes/freebsd/stable/13

I'll note that:

https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/blame/sys/arm/conf/std.armv7?h=releng%2F13.2

does not show a NETLINK line but:

https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/blame/sys/arm/conf/std.armv7?h=releng%2F13.3

does show it.

This is because of releng/13.2 having its own revert of
the addition:

committer Alexander V. Chernikov <melifaro@FreeBSD.org> 2023-02-27 16:33:29 +0000
commit a052a188766f022d4b0cb2484bda636a3345f644 (patch)
tree 2ad4c1e3d572a72d238e6c21198ea46f1050e521 /sys/arm/conf
parent 7dea81a4ed19e18a6f1104f14cd3e0ce57c8f5f5 (diff)
Revert "netlink: add NETLINK to GENERIC."
This is a Direct commit to releng/13.2.
. . .


> On 25.01.2026 0:37, Mark Millard wrote:
>> On 1/9/26 16:27, bob prohaska wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jan 09, 2026 at 01:14:56PM -0800, Mark Millard wrote:
>>>> The call chain in the backtrace in your original report is very
>>>> different than the one shown in buzilla 291294 (see above url). So
>>>> separate bugzilla reports looks to be what is appropriate.
>>> Reported as bug 292314
>>> 
>>> I have two rpi2's running current, both crash during shutdown -r
>>> but they seem to issue different messages. Both are included
>>> in the bugzilla report. One uses a relatively modern usb3-sata
>>> bridge while the other uses an old usb2-pata bridge, but that's
>>> the only obvious difference.
>>> 
>>> Thanks for your help!
>>> 
>>> bob prohaska
>>>  
>>> 
>> There are other bugzilla reports for at least both RPi2B v1.1's (armv7)
>> and RPi3B (aarch64) contexts that look similar (in at least part).
>> 
>> https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=292695
>> 
>> has a proposed patch.
>> 
>> I do not remember seeing  any reporting that indicates what changed to
>> start to need the likes of that patch vs. previously not needing it.
>> 
>> One of the reports goes back to: 2025-10-22 06:26 UTC :
>> 
>> https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=290417
>> 
>> 
> 


===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com