Messages in this thread | | | From | Rusty Russell <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] Remove module reference counting. | Date | Sat, 26 Jul 2003 08:26:11 +1000 |
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In message <20030725122651.4aedc768.shemminger@osdl.org> you write: > On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 04:00:18 +1000 > Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au> wrote: > > If module removal is to be a rare and unusual event, it > > doesn't seem so sensible to go to great lengths in the code to handle > > just that case. In fact, it's easier to leave the module memory in > > place, and not have the concept of parts of the kernel text (and some > > types of kernel data) vanishing. > > > > Polite feedback welcome, > > Rusty. > > -- > > There are two possible objections to this: > * Some developers keep the same kernel running and load/unload then reload > a new driver when debugging. This would break probably or at least cause > a large amount of kernel growth. Not that big an issue for me personally > but driver writers seem to get hit with all the changes.
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.
> * Drivers might get sloppy about not cleaning up timers and data > structures -- more than they are already. You might want to have a > kernel debug option that overwrite's the unloaded text with > something guaranteed to cause an oops.
I already have a poisoning patch for init code, when some modules seemed to suffer from this being discarded. I can extend it.
Thanks! Rusty. -- Anyone who quotes me in their sig is an idiot. -- Rusty Russell. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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