netdev - Re: [RFC][PATCH -mm take5 6/7] add ioctls for adding/removing target

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Message-ID: <a781481a0706131341k17170514q7a9d0ce052dbfe2a@mail.gmail.com>
Date:	Thu, 14 Jun 2007 02:11:22 +0530
From:	"Satyam Sharma" <satyam.sharma@...il.com>
To:	"Keiichi KII" <k-keiichi@...jp.nec.com>
Cc:	"Matt Mackall" <mpm@...enic.com>,
	"Andrew Morton" <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	"David Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC][PATCH -mm take5 6/7] add ioctls for adding/removing target

Hi Keiichi,

On 6/13/07, Keiichi KII <k-keiichi@...jp.nec.com> wrote:
> From: Keiichi KII <k-keiichi@...jp.nec.com>
>
> We add ioctls for adding/removing target.
> If we use NETCONSOLE_ADD_TARGET ioctl,
> we can dynamically add netconsole target.
> If we use NETCONSOLE_REMOVE_TARGET ioctl,
> we can dynamically remoe netconsole target.

*ugh*. I was wondering what a show-stopper this particular patch
was -- introduces a couple of ioctl()'s, exports a new structure to
userspace, adds a hitherto-unneeded header file, brings in
tty_struct/tty_operations and ends up adding so much complexity/
bloat to netconsole.c. Not only that, it must live together (and
side-by-side) with the sysfs interface also, because the two of them
do different things: sysfs to be able to modify target parameters at
run-time and the ioctl()'s to dynamically add/remove targets. We
can't really mkdir(2) or rmdir(2) in sysfs so the ioctl()'s are needed.

So may I suggest:

Just lose *both* the sysfs and ioctl() interfaces and use _configfs_.
It is *precisely* the thing you need in your driver here -- the ability
to create / destroy kernel objects (or config_items in configfs lingo)
from _userspace_ via simple mkdir(2) and rmdir(2). And configfs
makes changing multiple configurable parameters atomically trivial
too, via rename(2) ... not to mention a sysfs+ioctls -> configfs
conversion would help your patchset lose some weight too :-)

Satyam
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