linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 01/13] kdbus: add documentation

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Message-ID: <54BE9D08.7010804@zonque.org>
Date:	Tue, 20 Jan 2015 19:23:04 +0100
From:	Daniel Mack <daniel@...que.org>
To:	"Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages@...il.com>,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>, arnd@...db.de,
	ebiederm@...ssion.com, gnomes@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk, teg@...m.no,
	jkosina@...e.cz, luto@...capital.net, linux-api@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
CC:	daniel@...que.or, dh.herrmann@...il.com, tixxdz@...ndz.org,
	Johannes Stezenbach <js@...21.net>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 01/13] kdbus: add documentation

On 01/20/2015 02:53 PM, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote:
> This is an enormous and complex API. Why is the API ioctl() based,
> rather than system-call-based? Have we learned nothing from the hydra
> that the futex() multiplexing syscall became? (And kdbus is an order
> of magnitude more complex, by the look of things.) At the very least,
> a *good* justification of why the API is ioctl()-based should be part
> of this documentation file.

I think the simplest reason is because we want to be able to build kdbus
as a module. It's rather an optional driver than a core kernel feature.
IMO, kernel primitives should be syscalls, but kdbus is not a primitive
but an elaborate subsystem.

Also, the context the kdbus commands operate on originate from a
mountable special-purpose file system. Hence, we decided not to use a
global kernel interface but specific ioctls on the nodes exposed by kdbusfs.


Thanks,
Daniel

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