linux-kernel - Re: [RFC] Pushing device/driver binding decisions to userspace

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Date:	Sun, 12 Nov 2006 22:45:13 -0800
From:	Nicholas Miell <nmiell@...cast.net>
To:	Ben Collins <ben.collins@...ntu.com>
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC] Pushing device/driver binding decisions to userspace

On Sun, 2006-11-12 at 21:22 -0800, Ben Collins wrote:
> On Sun, 2006-11-12 at 17:47 -0800, Nicholas Miell wrote:
> > On Sun, 2006-11-12 at 17:24 -0800, Ben Collins wrote:
> > > On Sun, 2006-11-12 at 16:49 -0800, Nicholas Miell wrote:
> > > > On Sun, 2006-11-12 at 15:39 -0800, Ben Collins wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > What's wrong with making udev or whatever unbind driver A and then bind
> > > > driver B if the driver bound by the kernel ends up being the wrong
> > > > choice? (Besides the inelegance of the kernel choosing one and then
> > > > userspace immediately choosing the other, of course.)
> > > > 
> > > > I'd argue that having multiple drivers for the same hardware is a bit
> > > > strange to begin with, but that's another issue entirely.
> > > 
> > > If two drivers are loaded for the same device, there's no way for udev
> > > to tell the kernel which driver to use for a device, that I know of.
> > 
> > /sys/bus/*/drivers/*/{bind,unbind}
> 
> "bind" does not tell the driver core to "bind this device with this
> driver", it tells it to "bind this driver to whatever devices we match
> that aren't already bound".
> 
> That doesn't solve my use case.

I don't have any hardware with multiple drivers lying around, but I'm
fairly certain you can write the bus ID of a device into driver A's
unbind file and then follow that with a write of that bus ID into driver
B's bind file and get the effect that you want.

> 
> > > Also, that just sounds very horrible to do. If you have udev/dbus events
> > > flying around for "device present", "device gone", "device present",
> > > then it could make for a very ugly user experience (think of programs to
> > > handle devices being started because of these events).
> > 
> > So don't fire the events until after the final binding.
> 
> It's still not a correct solution. If we want a specific driver to be
> bound to a specific device, userspace shouldn't have to jump through
> hoops to do it. It should be simple and clean.
> 
> The suggestions you are giving require userspace to work around a
> deficiency in the kernel, by guessing the ordering requirements to
> satisfy what the user wants. In cases of hotplugging, it is also
> sometimes impossible to satisfy these requirements using the current
> scheme.

Well, the kernel's deficiency is that there's multiple drivers for the
same hardware, not that userspace doesn't get first say in how hardware
is bound to drivers.

-- 
Nicholas Miell <nmiell@...cast.net>

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