linux-kernel - Re: [Qemu-devel] [RFC] Next gen kvm api

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: <4F3CD9D9.2050900@redhat.com>
Date:	Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:26:33 +0200
From:	Avi Kivity <avi@...hat.com>
To:	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>
CC:	qemu-devel@...gnu.org, Alexander Graf <agraf@...e.de>,
	michael@...erman.id.au, KVM list <kvm@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Eric Northup <digitaleric@...gle.com>,
	Scott Wood <scottwood@...escale.com>
Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] [RFC] Next gen kvm api

On 02/16/2012 12:21 AM, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> ioctl is good for hardware devices and stuff that you want to enumerate
> and/or control permissions on. For something like KVM that is really a
> core kernel service, a syscall makes much more sense.
>
> I would certainly never mix the two concepts: If you use a chardev to get
> a file descriptor, use ioctl to do operations on it, and if you use a 
> syscall to get the file descriptor then use other syscalls to do operations
> on it.
>
> I don't really have a good recommendation whether or not to change from an
> ioctl based interface to syscall for KVM now. On the one hand I believe it
> would be significantly cleaner, on the other hand we cannot remove the
> chardev interface any more since there are many existing users.
>

This sums up my feelings exactly.  Moving to syscalls would be an
improvement, but not so much an improvement as to warrant the thrashing
and the pain from having to maintain the old interface for a long while.

-- 
error compiling committee.c: too many arguments to function

--
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/