Messages in this thread Patch in this message | | | Subject | [RFC] binary firmware and modules | From | Jon Masters <> | Date | Sat, 15 Apr 2006 09:10:55 +0100 |
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Hi folks,
Right now, various kernel modules are being migrated over to use request_firmware in order to pull in binary firmware blobs from userland when the module is loaded. This makes sense.
However, there is right now little mechanism in place to automatically determine which binary firmware blobs must be included with a kernel in order to satisfy the prerequisites of these drivers. This affects vendors, but also regular users to a certain extent too.
The attached patch introduces MODULE_FIRMWARE as one way of advertising that a particular firmware file is to be loaded - it will then show up via modinfo and could be used e.g. when packaging a kernel. I've also given an example via the QLogic gla2xxx driver.
I expect that there are better ways to do this, so I'd like comments from those closer to the ground on this problem. In particular, it would be better if drivers didn't have to list the firmware twice - once in request_firmware and then via MODULE_FIRMWARE. Maybe API change time?
Jon.
P.S. Until I fix evolution again, I'm using an attachment.
diff -urN linux-2.6.16.2_orig/drivers/scsi/qla2xxx/qla_os.c linux-2.6.16.2_dev/drivers/scsi/qla2xxx/qla_os.c --- linux-2.6.16.2_orig/drivers/scsi/qla2xxx/qla_os.c 2006-04-07 17:56:47.000000000 +0100 +++ linux-2.6.16.2_dev/drivers/scsi/qla2xxx/qla_os.c 2006-04-12 20:22:15.000000000 +0100 @@ -2765,3 +2765,9 @@ MODULE_DESCRIPTION("QLogic Fibre Channel HBA Driver"); MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); MODULE_VERSION(QLA2XXX_VERSION); +MODULE_FIRMWARE("ql2100_fw.bin"); +MODULE_FIRMWARE("ql2200_fw.bin"); +MODULE_FIRMWARE("ql2300_fw.bin"); +MODULE_FIRMWARE("ql2322_fw.bin"); +MODULE_FIRMWARE("ql6312_fw.bin"); +MODULE_FIRMWARE("ql2400_fw.bin"); diff -urN linux-2.6.16.2_orig/include/linux/module.h linux-2.6.16.2_dev/include/linux/module.h --- linux-2.6.16.2_orig/include/linux/module.h 2006-04-07 17:56:47.000000000 +0100 +++ linux-2.6.16.2_dev/include/linux/module.h 2006-04-12 13:51:56.000000000 +0100 @@ -155,6 +155,8 @@ */ #define MODULE_VERSION(_version) MODULE_INFO(version, _version)
+#define MODULE_FIRMWARE(_firmware) MODULE_INFO(firmware, _firmware) + /* Given an address, look for it in the exception tables */ const struct exception_table_entry *search_exception_tables(unsigned long add);
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