From: Bruno Meneguele <bmeneg@redhat.com>
To: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com,
torvalds@linux-foundation.org, Jason@zx2c4.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH] doc:kmsg: explictly state the return value in case of SEEK_CUR
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 10:10:52 -0300 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20200710131052.GA9078@glitch> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20200710121923.GO4751@alley>
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On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 02:19:23PM +0200, Petr Mladek wrote:
> On Thu 2020-07-09 12:54:15, Bruno Meneguele wrote:
> > The commit 625d3449788f ("Revert "kernel/printk: add kmsg SEEK_CUR
> > handling"") reverted a change done to the return value in case a SEEK_CUR
> > operation was performed for kmsg buffer based on the fact that different
> > userspace apps were handling the new return value (-ESPIPE) in different
> > ways, breaking them.
> >
> > At the same time -ESPIPE was the wrong decision because kmsg /does support/
> > seek() but doesn't follow the "normal" behavior userspace is used to.
> > Because of that and also considering the time -EINVAL has been used, it was
> > decided to keep this way to avoid more userspace breakage.
> >
> > This patch adds an official statement to the kmsg documentation pointing to
> > the current return value for SEEK_CUR, -EINVAL, thus userspace libraries and
> > apps can refer to it for a definitive guide on what to expected.
> >
> > --- a/Documentation/ABI/testing/dev-kmsg
> > +++ b/Documentation/ABI/testing/dev-kmsg
> > @@ -56,6 +56,11 @@ Description: The /dev/kmsg character device node provides userspace access
> > seek after the last record available at the time
> > the last SYSLOG_ACTION_CLEAR was issued.
> >
> > + Considering that the seek operation is supported but has
> > + special meaning to the device, any attempt to seek specific
> > + positions on the buffer (i.e. using SEEK_CUR) results in an
> > + -EINVAL error returned to userspace.
>
> Sigh, I see that devkmsg_llseek() returns -ESPIPE when offset is not
> zero. This is a real mess.
>
> I wonder if we could afford to switch this one to -EINVAL and reduce
> the mess.
>
That's a really good question for which I think the answer is something
close to: "that's impossible to predict". I could try some in-house (at
redhat) automated tests to see if something break, but I doubt it is
enough to catch any breakage.
> Anyway, for a random reader, it might be pretty unclear what is
> exactly special about /dev/kmsg. I wonder if the following might
> be more explanatory and strightforward:
>
> Other seek operations or offsets are not supported because of
> the special behavior. The device allows to read or write
> only whole variable lenght messages that are stored in
> a ring buffer.
>
> Because of the non-standard behavior also the error values
> are non-standardand. -ESPIPE is returned for non-zero offset.
> -EINVAL is returned for other operations, e.g. SEEK_CUR.
> This behavior is historical and could not be modified
> wihtout the risk of breaking userspace.
>
Yes, no doubt it's better!
>
> Finally, only few people read documentation. We should add some
> warning also to the code. I think about a something like:
>
> /*
> * Be careful when modifying this function!!!
> *
> * Only few operations are supported because the device works only with
> * the entire variable length messages. Non-standard error values are
> * returned in the other cases. User space applications might depend
> * on this behavior.
> */
>
Agreed.
I'm going to prepare a v2 of the patch adding the comments.
Thanks Petr!
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bmeneg
PGP Key: http://bmeneg.com/pubkey.txt
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prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-07-10 13:11 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-07-09 15:54 [PATCH] doc:kmsg: explictly state the return value in case of SEEK_CUR Bruno Meneguele
2020-07-10 12:19 ` Petr Mladek
2020-07-10 13:10 ` Bruno Meneguele [this message]
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