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SubjectRe: [patch] remove artificial software max_loop limit
Jan Engelhardt wrote:
> On Apr 1 2007 11:10, Ken Chen wrote:
>> On 4/1/07, Tomas M <tomas@slax.org> wrote:
>>
>>> I believe that IF you _really_ need to preserve the max_loop module
>>> parameter, then the parameter should _not_ be ignored, rather it
>>> should have the same function like before - to limit the loop driver
>>> so if you use max_loop=10 for example, it should not allow loop.c to
>>> create more than 10 loops.
>> Blame on the dual meaning of max_loop that it uses currently: to
>> initialize a set of loop devices and as a side effect, it also sets
>> the upper limit. People are complaining about the former constrain,
>> isn't it? Does anyone uses the 2nd meaning of upper limit?
>
> Who cares if the user specifies max_loop=8 but still is able to open up
> /dev/loop8, loop9, etc.? max_loop=X basically meant (at least to me)
> "have at least X" loops ready.
>
You have just come up with a really good reason not to do unlimited
loops. With the current limit people can count on a script mounting
files, or similar, to neither loop for a VERY long time or to eat their
memory. Whatever you think of programs without limit checking, this
falls in the range of expecting an unsigned char to have a certain upper
bound, and argues that the default limit should be the current limit and
that setting a lower bound should work as a real and enforced limit.

If a new capability is being added, and I think it's a great one, then
people using the capability should be the ones explicitly doing
something different. Plauger's law of least astonishment.

--
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
"We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked." - from Slashdot
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