kernel: bump minimal Linux kernel to 5.10

Follow up to open-telemetry#1259 and open-telemetry#1178 and bump the minimal supported Linux kernel version to 5.10.

Signed-off-by: Florian Lehner <florian.lehner@elastic.co>

Author: florianl

.github/workflows/unit-test-on-pull-request.yml

@@ -145,7 +145,6 @@ jobs:
           # https://github.com/cilium/ci-kernels/pkgs/container/ci-kernels/versions?filters%5Bversion_type%5D=tagged
 
           # AMD64
-          - { target_arch: amd64, kernel: 5.4.276 }
           - { target_arch: amd64, kernel: 5.10.217 }
           - { target_arch: amd64, kernel: 5.15.159 }
           - { target_arch: amd64, kernel: 6.1.91 }

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ slack channel for discussions and questions.
 
 ## Pre-requisites
 
-- Linux (5.4+ for x86-64, 5.5+ for ARM64) with eBPF enabled (the profiler currently only runs on Linux)
+- Linux (5.10+) with eBPF enabled (the profiler currently only runs on Linux)
 - Go as specified in [go.mod](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-ebpf-profiler/blob/main/go.mod)
 - docker
 - Rust as specified in [Cargo.toml](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-ebpf-profiler/blob/main/Cargo.toml)

LICENSES/golang.org/x/exp/constraints/LICENSE

@@ -58,7 +58,10 @@ Since the profiler is Linux-only, macOS and Windows users need to set up a Linux
 
 ## Supported Linux kernel version
 
-[7ddc23ea](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-ebpf-profiler/commit/7ddc23ea135a2e00fffc17850ab90534e9b63108) is the last commit with support for 4.19. Changes after this commit may require a minimal Linux kernel version of 5.4.
+The minimum required Linux kernel version has increased with certain commits. Specifically:
+
+- Commit [8047150e](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-ebpf-profiler/commit/8047150e3f325f852874591356c69d0487b67d7c) was the last to support kernel version 5.4. Subsequent changes may require a minimal Linux kernel version of 5.10 or greater.
+- Commit [7ddc23ea](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-ebpf-profiler/commit/7ddc23ea135a2e00fffc17850ab90534e9b63108) was the last to support kernel version 4.19. Subsequent changes may require a minimal Linux kernel version of at least 5.4.
 
 ### Updating the supported Linux kernel version
 

README.md

@@ -6,7 +6,6 @@ package config // import "go.opentelemetry.io/ebpf-profiler/collector/config"
 import (
 	"errors"
 	"fmt"
-	"runtime"
 	"strings"
 	"time"
 
@@ -122,17 +121,7 @@ func (cfg *Config) Validate() error {
 		}
 
 		var minMajor, minMinor uint32
-		switch runtime.GOARCH {
-		case "amd64":
-			minMajor, minMinor = 5, 2
-		case "arm64":
-			// Older ARM64 kernel versions have broken bpf_probe_read.
-			// https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/6ae08ae3dea2cfa03dd3665a3c8475c2d429ef47
-			minMajor, minMinor = 5, 5
-		default:
-			return fmt.Errorf("unsupported architecture: %s", runtime.GOARCH)
-		}
-
+		minMajor, minMinor = 5, 10
 		if major < minMajor || (major == minMajor && minor < minMinor) {
 			return fmt.Errorf("host Agent requires kernel version "+
 				"%d.%d or newer but got %d.%d.%d", minMajor, minMinor, major, minor, patch)

collector/config/config.go

@@ -206,16 +206,10 @@ of these limitations are significantly relaxed in newer kernel versions, but we
 still have to stick to the old limits because we wish to continue supporting
 older kernels.
 
-The minimum supported Linux kernel versions are
-- 5.4 for amd64/x86_64
-- 5.5 for arm64/aarch64
+The minimum supported Linux kernel versions is 5.10 for amd64/x86_64 and arm64/aarch64.
 
 The most notable limitations are the following two:
 
-- **4096 instructions per program**\
-  A single BPF program can consist of a maximum of 4096 instructions, otherwise
-  older kernels will refuse to load it. Since BPF does not allow for loops, they
-  instead need to be unrolled.
 - **32 tail-calls**\
   Linux allows BPF programs to do a tail-call to another BPF program. A tail
   call is essentially a `jmp` into another BPF program, ending execution of the

doc/KNOWN_KERNEL_LIMITATIONS.md

@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ require (
 	github.com/stretchr/testify v1.11.1
 	github.com/zeebo/xxh3 v1.1.0
 	go.opentelemetry.io/collector/component v1.54.0
+	go.opentelemetry.io/collector/component/componenttest v0.148.0
 	go.opentelemetry.io/collector/confmap/xconfmap v0.148.0
 	go.opentelemetry.io/collector/consumer/consumertest v0.148.0
 	go.opentelemetry.io/collector/consumer/xconsumer v0.148.0
@@ -39,7 +40,6 @@ require (
 	go.opentelemetry.io/proto/otlp/profiles/v1development v0.3.0
 	go.uber.org/zap/exp v0.3.0
 	golang.org/x/arch v0.25.0
-	golang.org/x/exp v0.0.0-20260312153236-7ab1446f8b90
 	golang.org/x/mod v0.34.0
 	golang.org/x/sync v0.20.0
 	golang.org/x/sys v0.42.0
@@ -87,7 +87,6 @@ require (
 	github.com/modern-go/reflect2 v1.0.3-0.20250322232337-35a7c28c31ee // indirect
 	github.com/pmezard/go-difflib v1.0.1-0.20181226105442-5d4384ee4fb2 // indirect
 	go.opentelemetry.io/auto/sdk v1.2.1 // indirect
-	go.opentelemetry.io/collector/component/componenttest v0.148.0 // indirect
 	go.opentelemetry.io/collector/confmap v1.54.0 // indirect
 	go.opentelemetry.io/collector/consumer v1.54.0 // indirect
 	go.opentelemetry.io/collector/consumer/consumererror v0.148.0 // indirect

doc/internals.md

@@ -203,8 +203,6 @@ go.yaml.in/yaml/v3 v3.0.4/go.mod h1:DhzuOOF2ATzADvBadXxruRBLzYTpT36CKvDb3+aBEFg=
 golang.org/x/arch v0.25.0 h1:qnk6Ksugpi5Bz32947rkUgDt9/s5qvqDPl/gBKdMJLE=
 golang.org/x/arch v0.25.0/go.mod h1:0X+GdSIP+kL5wPmpK7sdkEVTt2XoYP0cSjQSbZBwOi8=
 golang.org/x/crypto v0.0.0-20190308221718-c2843e01d9a2/go.mod h1:djNgcEr1/C05ACkg1iLfiJU5Ep61QUkGW8qpdssI0+w=
-golang.org/x/exp v0.0.0-20260312153236-7ab1446f8b90 h1:jiDhWWeC7jfWqR9c/uplMOqJ0sbNlNWv0UkzE0vX1MA=
-golang.org/x/exp v0.0.0-20260312153236-7ab1446f8b90/go.mod h1:xE1HEv6b+1SCZ5/uscMRjUBKtIxworgEcEi+/n9NQDQ=
 golang.org/x/mod v0.34.0 h1:xIHgNUUnW6sYkcM5Jleh05DvLOtwc6RitGHbDk4akRI=
 golang.org/x/mod v0.34.0/go.mod h1:ykgH52iCZe79kzLLMhyCUzhMci+nQj+0XkbXpNYtVjY=
 golang.org/x/net v0.0.0-20190311183353-d8887717615a/go.mod h1:t9HGtf8HONx5eT2rtn7q6eTqICYqUVnKs3thJo3Qplg=