From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S272064AbTG1CBa (ORCPT ); Sun, 27 Jul 2003 22:01:30 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S272060AbTG1ABS (ORCPT ); Sun, 27 Jul 2003 20:01:18 -0400 Received: from zeus.kernel.org ([204.152.189.113]:14071 "EHLO zeus.kernel.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S272941AbTG0XB5 (ORCPT ); Sun, 27 Jul 2003 19:01:57 -0400 From: Rusty Russell To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Stephen Hemminger , "David S. Miller" , arjanv@redhat.com, Greg KH , Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: [PATCH] Remove module reference counting. In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 26 Jul 2003 12:31:25 MST." Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 05:34:36 +1000 Message-Id: <20030727193919.832302C450@lists.samba.org> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In message you write: > > First off - we're not changing fundamental module stuff any more. OK. Who are you and what have you done with the real Linus? I guess it's back to fixing up reference counting in the rest of the kernel. It's not hard, it's just not done. 8( > > No, it would just leak memory. Not really a concern for developers. > > It's fairly trivial to hack up a backdoor "remove all freed modules > > and be damned" thing for developers if there's real demand. > > It's not just a developer thing. At least installers etc used to do some > device probing by loading modules and depending on the result. A similar case. At this point you don't have random users trying to access things, so freeing is actually fairly safe (modulo other bugs). The kudzu one and Alan's USB firmware example bother me more: they load then unload modules currently? Since modern device drivers are not supposed to fail to load just because there isn't currently hardware, I guess they'd have to. Oh well, Rusty. -- Anyone who quotes me in their sig is an idiot. -- Rusty Russell.