linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] unisys: staging: Check for s-Par firmware before initializing s-Par modules

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Date:	Wed, 9 Apr 2014 12:25:52 -0700
From:	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
To:	"Romer, Benjamin M" <Benjamin.Romer@...sys.com>
Cc:	*S-Par-Maintainer <SParMaintainer@...sys.com>,
	"jkc@...hat.com" <jkc@...hat.com>,
	"devel@...verdev.osuosl.org" <devel@...verdev.osuosl.org>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] unisys: staging: Check for s-Par firmware before
 initializing s-Par modules

On Wed, Apr 09, 2014 at 02:04:50PM -0500, Romer, Benjamin M wrote:
> This patch adds a function, is_spar_system(), to check that s-Par
> firmware is present, and then uses this function at the beginning of
> each module to verify that the modules are being run on an s-Par system
> before beginning initialization. If the firmware is not detected, the
> module will return a failure code.
> 
> Checking for s-Par firmware uses the cpuid instruction to verify that
> the processor is running with virtualization turned on, and then uses a
> second cpuid instruction to check that the hypervisor ID is
> "UnisysSpar64".

Why not use the cpuid infrastructure to automatically load/bind your
code and not rely on it being loaded "by hand"?  Doesn't that work for
CPU types already?

> Additionally, some minor clean-up was done on copyright tags and
> unnecessary messages were removed from the visorchipset_main() function.

Patches need to do only one thing, so can you please split this up in to
multiple patches, each one only doing one thing.

> This patch was tested with KVM to ensure that the modules do not load
> when s-Par firmware is not present, and tested with s-Par 4.0.12 to
> verify that the modules load correctly when the firmware is present.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Benjamin Romer <benjamin.romer@...sys.com>

You forgot to add a "Reported-by:" line here, and possibly a
"Tested-by:" if someone tested it and reported that it solved the
problem.  Proper attribution is very important.

thanks,

greg k-h
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