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vmlinux

vmlinux is linked from the objects in vmlinux.a and $KBUILD_VMLINUX_LIBS.

vmlinux.a contains objects that are linked unconditionally.

$KBUILD_VMLINUX_LIBS are archives which are linked conditionally (not within --whole-archive) and don't require symbol indexes added.

The (or one of the possible) command(s) to link vmlinux (version 6.5) is

ld         \
   -m elf_x86_64 \
   -z noexecstack \
   --emit-relocs \
   --discard-none \
   -z max-page-size=0x200000 \
   --build-id=sha1 \
   --orphan-handling=error \
   --script=./arch/x86/kernel/vmlinux.lds \
   -o vmlinux \
   --whole-archive \
   vmlinux.o .vmlinux.export.o init/version-timestamp.o \
   --no-whole-archive \
   --start-group --end-group \
   .tmp_vmlinux.kallsyms2.o

This command is executed from the script scripts/link-vmlinux.sh (function vmlinux_link).

vmlinux

See also