Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Mon, 19 Mar 2012 07:32:41 -0400 | | From | Christoph Hellwig <> | | Subject | Re: [PATCH] Install kernel-page-flags.h |
| |
On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 12:40:36PM +0200, Alexey Dobriyan wrote: > >> Programs using /proc/kpageflags need to know about the various flags. ??The > >> <linux/kernel-page-flags.h> provides them and the comments in the file > >> indicate that it is supposed to be used by user-level code. ??But the file > >> is not installed. > >> > >> The patch below installs the headers and marks the unstable flags as > >> out-of-bounds. > > > > I don't think this is a good idea at all. ??Let's shoot the person who > > added that braindead interface ASAP, and replace it with one printing > > the flags in ASCII format. > > ASCII sucks. > This interface is not for humans.
But we still can't lock down the page flags for a user interface - they are a very scare resource and we can't afford to keep them stable due to userspace poking into internals.
I guess the best we can do is to have a translation table for kernel internal to external documented flags. Once you export the header with the meanings it's time to add that table, even if it starts out as a 1:1 mapping.
|  |