Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:10:34 +0530 | From | "Satyam Sharma" <> | Subject | Re: [RFC 1/4] CONFIG_STABLE: Define it |
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On 7/20/07, Chris Snook <csnook@redhat.com> wrote: > Satyam Sharma wrote: > > On 7/20/07, Chris Snook <csnook@redhat.com> wrote: > >> Satyam Sharma wrote: > >> > [ Just cleaning up my inbox, and stumbled across this thread ... ] > >> > > >> > > >> > On 5/31/07, clameter@sgi.com <clameter@sgi.com> wrote: > >> >> Introduce CONFIG_STABLE to control checks only useful for development. > >> >> > >> >> Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com> > >> >> [...] > >> >> menu "General setup" > >> >> > >> >> +config STABLE > >> >> + bool "Stable kernel" > >> >> + help > >> >> + If the kernel is configured to be a stable kernel then > >> various > >> >> + checks that are only of interest to kernel development > >> will be > >> >> + omitted. > >> >> + > >> > > >> > > >> > "A programmer who uses assertions during testing and turns them off > >> > during production is like a sailor who wears a life vest while drilling > >> > on shore and takes it off at sea." > >> > - Tony Hoare > >> > > >> > > >> > Probably you meant to turn off debug _output_ (and not _checks_) > >> > with this config option? But we already have CONFIG_FOO_DEBUG_BAR > >> > for those situations ... > >> > >> There are plenty of validation and debugging features in the kernel > >> that go WAY > >> beyond mere assertions, often imposing significant overhead > >> (particularly when > >> you scale up) or creating interfaces you'd never use unless you were > >> doing > >> kernel development work. You really do want these features completely > >> removed > >> from production kernels. > > > > As for entire such "development/debugging-related features", most (all, > > really) > > should anyway have their own config options. > > They do. With kconfig dependencies, we can ensure that those config options are > off when CONFIG_STABLE is set. That way you only have to set one option to > ensure that all these expensive checks are disabled.
Oh, so you mean use this (the negation of this, actually) as a universal kconfig dependency of all other such development/debugging related stuff? Hmm, the name is quite misleading in that case.
Anyway, what surprised me was 4/4 in this patchset. Funny that we wouldn't want to corrupt memory / trash hard disks / follow invalid pointers on a developers testbox, but (knowingly) want to do that on a production website running Google.com's website :-) - 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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