Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262110AbUCQWZg (ORCPT ); Wed, 17 Mar 2004 17:25:36 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262119AbUCQWZg (ORCPT ); Wed, 17 Mar 2004 17:25:36 -0500 Received: from p68.rivermarket.wintek.com ([208.13.56.68]:1490 "EHLO dust.p68.rivermarket.wintek.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262110AbUCQWZV (ORCPT ); Wed, 17 Mar 2004 17:25:21 -0500 Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 17:27:50 -0500 (EST) From: Alex Goddard To: Helge Hafting Cc: Marek Szuba , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: 2.6.4, or what I still don't quite like about the new stable branch In-Reply-To: <4058097F.4070606@aitel.hist.no> Message-ID: References: <4058097F.4070606@aitel.hist.no> X-GPG-PUBLIC_KEY: N/a X-GPG-FINGERPRINT: BCBC 0868 DB78 22F3 A657 785D 6E3B 7ACB 584E B835 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1609 Lines: 39 On Wed, 17 Mar 2004, Helge Hafting wrote: > Alex Goddard wrote: > [...] > > > > Safe module unloading is a very difficult problem. So much so that > > disallowing unloading modules completely has been discussed in the past. > > Digging around an lkml archive for more info on why module unloading is > > inherently problematic, and not at all easy to do (well, not at all easy > > to do well) is recommended. > > Safe unloading is hard for a few oddball modules that probably shouldn't > be modules at all but rather be part of some larger module. Is it necessary > to have modules for various parts of iptables, instead of stuffing > everything in a big "ipv4" module? That is not the impression I got from this post: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=104554480315013&w=2 This thread is the other one that came to mind: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=105915495603446&w=2 In one post in the thread spawned by the second URL's post, Alan Cox suggests a plan vaguely similar to what you outlined below what I've quoted (ie: a MODULE_UNLOADABLE flag or something for those modules that _can_ be easily unloaded). However, the general impression I get from that thread on removing module refcounting is that in general unloading modules is tricky. Not unsolvable. Just tricky. -- Alex Goddard agoddard at purdue dot edu - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/