linux-kernel - Re: [2.6 patch] remove smbfs

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Message-ID: <20080130201350.7a576203@tleilax.poochiereds.net>
Date:	Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:13:50 -0500
From:	Jeff Layton <jlayton@...hat.com>
To:	Adrian Bunk <bunk@...nel.org>
Cc:	Guenter Kukkukk <linux@...kukk.com>,
	samba-technical@...ts.samba.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	sfrench@...ba.org
Subject: Re: [2.6 patch] remove smbfs

On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:47:17 +0200
Adrian Bunk <bunk@...nel.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 30, 2008 at 07:34:12PM -0500, Jeff Layton wrote:
> > On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:58:10 +0200
> > Adrian Bunk <bunk@...nel.org> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Wed, Jan 30, 2008 at 05:41:03PM -0500, Jeff Layton wrote:
> > > > On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:16:13 +0100
> > > > Guenter Kukkukk <linux@...kukk.com> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > Am Montag, 28. Januar 2008 schrieb Adrian Bunk:
> > > > > > I remember that there were some small things missing in CIFS
> > > > > > for completely replacing the unmaintained smbfs when we
> > > > > > discussed removing smbfs back in 2005 due to smbfs being
> > > > > > unmaintained.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > CIFS has improved since, smbfs is still unmaintained, and
> > > > > > it's becoming time to finally remove smbfs.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Signed-off-by: Adrian Bunk <bunk@...nel.org>
> > > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > "... unmaintained smbfs ..." is not quite right, see
> > > > >    http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/11/6/94
> > > > > Before removing it now completely, drop
> > > > >   Jeff Layton <jlayton@...hat.com>
> > > > > a note.
> > > > > Afaik, Redhat still has customers which rely on smbfs.
> > > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Some of our older products use smbfs, but our newer stuff
> > > > (RHEL5 and up) have smbfs disabled. Fedora has had smbfs
> > > > disabled for quite some time as well. I've heard very few
> > > > complaints (though maybe they're just not getting to me).
> > > > 
> > > > I have no problem with targeting smbfs for removal, but I
> > > > thought Andrew had an unofficial policy that we should first
> > > > mark things to be deprecated, and then remove them 2 releases
> > > > later. That seems like a sensible policy to me. If we mark it
> > > > deprecated in 2.6.25 then we can remove it after 2.6.26 is
> > > > released.
> > > > 
> > > > It might not even hurt to have a nice loud printk when the smbfs
> > > > module is plugged in to warn users that it's slated to be
> > > > removed, and that they should move to CIFS as soon as possible.
> > > 
> > > Andrew has this with a target date of December 2006 (sic) for the 
> > > removal buried in -mm...
> > > 
> > 
> > True, but most users don't run -mm. I think we should have this
> > marked as deprecated in mainline kernels before removing it. I
> > rather like the idea of a runtime warning too...
> 
> drivers/pcmcia/pcmcia_ioctl.c was scheduled for removal in November
> 2005 and has such a printk since 2005.
> 
> Without any good reason why it's still in the kernel.
> 
> > smbfs has the unfortunate quality of momentum. A lot of users aren't
> > aware of CIFS at all since smbfs basically does what they need it to
> > do. Some extra warning for those users would be nice.
> 
> And many users will start whining loudly that the not deprecated
> driver (in this case cifs) has this or that bug not before the patch
> to finally remove the deprecated feature got applied or at least
> posted.
> 
> And will demand that it therefore does not get removed.
> 

Sucks for them then. They're always welcome to take the old code and
maintain it out of tree if they wish.

> > > > > In addition, cifs cannot completely replace smbfs atm.
> > > > > Even todays sold NAS-boxes (often running anchient 
> > > > > samba-2.x.x) work only with smbfs on the client side.
> > > > 
> > > > It would be ideal if someone were to report these problems as
> > > > bugs. I remember some of those in the past, but haven't heard
> > > > of any cases of that sort of thing for some time. When I have,
> > > > Steve has generally been very good about tracking down the
> > > > cause and fixing it.
> > > 
> > > More exactly, one of the main advantages of removing redundant
> > > code like smbfs is that people are finally forced to report their
> > > bugs.
> > > 
> > 
> > Indeed. I'm all for removing it, but I think we should try to have a
> > clear transition path to avoid some of the "WTF happened to smbfs?"
> > emails we're bound to get. Marking it deprecated in mainline and
> > stating that it'll be removed in version 2.6.26 (or whenever) seems
> > like a reasonable thing to do.
> 
> How many "WTF happened to smbfs?" emails did you get at RedHat?
> 

Not too many, though we did have customers who demanded that we fix
smbfs and refused to move to cifs. We did that for some of the older
releases but they're out of luck on the new ones.

I don't feel strongly about this either way, really. In general, I
think offering some warning is the better approach, but if you think
that removing smbfs immediately is the right one then go for it...

-- 
Jeff Layton <jlayton@...hat.com>
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