linux-kernel - Re: 2.6.20-rc6 ramdisk problem

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-id: <45C130DC.90905@shaw.ca>
Date:	Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:14:20 -0600
From:	Robert Hancock <hancockr@...w.ca>
To:	tglx@...utronix.de
Cc:	michal.k.k.piotrowski@...il.com,
	linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: 2.6.20-rc6 ramdisk problem

Thomas Gleixner wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-01-31 at 17:54 -0600, Robert Hancock wrote:
>> I'm not sure if there's an inherent max ramdisk size limit, however I 
>> should point out that in most cases, using a tmpfs or ramfs file system 
>> is better than old-style ramdisks. Those filesystems return unused 
>> memory to the kernel (ramdisks statically allocate the entire space) and 
>> also avoid the filesystem overhead of ramdisks (the files are mapped 
>> into pagecache directly).
> 
> This is not a question of what's better or not. 
> 
> Michal stepped into a real life problem:
> 
> 1. ramdisk gets created in the first place w/o problems
> 2. formatting the same ramdisk succeeds
> 3. trying to use it fails
> 
> So either #1 or #2 should have failed in the first place. Failing in #3
> is definitely a BUG in #1 or #2.
> 
> How does your advise help to fix that BUG ? Ignoring it by using
> something else ?

Yes, there is likely a bug here of some sort. However, that doesn't 
change the fact that ramdisks are sub-optimal for most uses.

-- 
Robert Hancock      Saskatoon, SK, Canada
To email, remove "nospam" from hancockr@...pamshaw.ca
Home Page: http://www.roberthancock.com/


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/