linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/1] x86: Fix mcheck_init_device() to handle misc

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Message-ID: <20110305125637.GB27180@aftab>
Date:	Sat, 5 Mar 2011 13:56:37 +0100
From:	Borislav Petkov <bp@...64.org>
To:	Johan Wessfeldt <johan.wessfeldt@...il.com>
Cc:	Borislav Petkov <bp@...64.org>,
	"J.P. Lacerda" <jp.lacerda@...ethink.co.uk>,
	"akpm@...ux-foundation.org" <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	"tglx@...utronix.de" <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	"mingo@...hat.com" <mingo@...hat.com>,
	"x86@...nel.org" <x86@...nel.org>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/1] x86: Fix mcheck_init_device() to handle
 misc_register() correctly

On Fri, Mar 04, 2011 at 04:07:21PM -0500, Johan Wessfeldt wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 6:16 PM, Borislav Petkov <bp@...64.org> wrote:

..

> > Anyway, while this is makes sense from correctness POV, if we hit an
> > error path here this early then something else is going terribly wrong
> > which would've screamed very loudly already. Are you hitting this on a
> > real workload or you caught this by code staring?
> The orginal patch was made with the intention of auditing the code
> according to the kernel-janitors TODO list:
> http://kernelnewbies.org/KernelJanitors/Todo/ReturnCodes .
> 
> To clear things up. I originally posted a minor patch, which basically passed
> the return value from misc_register up the stack. See
> http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=129889198732342&w=2

I see what you're doing and I think it is great that you're trying to
audit the code - this is actually very commendable but I'm questioning
whether such a "fix" makes sense in this case. As I said above, if we
hit those error paths, then we definitely botched up something else big
time and recovering here is pretty moot at this point. Therefore, adding
a bunch of code which is almost never executed is simply unneeded.

HTH.

-- 
Regards/Gruss,
Boris.

Advanced Micro Devices GmbH
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