Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 16:41:35 -0700
From: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
To: "Randy.Dunlap" <rdunlap@xenotime.net>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, rossb@google.com, sam@ravnborg.org
Subject: Re: + allow-proc-configgz-to-be-built-as-a-module.patch added to
 -mm tree
Message-Id: <20060915164135.34adb303.akpm@osdl.org>
In-Reply-To: <20060915154752.d7bdb8a0.rdunlap@xenotime.net>
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	<20060915154752.d7bdb8a0.rdunlap@xenotime.net>
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On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:47:52 -0700
"Randy.Dunlap" <rdunlap@xenotime.net> wrote:

> On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 14:58:06 -0700 akpm@osdl.org wrote:
> 
> > 
> > The patch titled
> > 
> >      allow /proc/config.gz to be built as a module
> > 
> > has been added to the -mm tree.  Its filename is
> > 
> >      allow-proc-configgz-to-be-built-as-a-module.patch
> > 
> > See http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/stuff/added-to-mm.txt to find
> > out what to do about this
> > 
> > ------------------------------------------------------
> > Subject: allow /proc/config.gz to be built as a module
> > From: Ross Biro <rossb@google.com>
> 
> When/where was this patch submitted?  I seem to have missed it
> (or it was so long ago that I forgot about it).

Ross wrote it today and I stole it.

> > The driver for /proc/config.gz consumes rather a lot of memory and it is in
> > fact possible to build it as a module.
> 
> Can you try to quantify "rather a lot of memory"?

I confused it with /proc/kallsyms.  No, /proc/config.gz doesn't use much
memory.

> > In some ways this is a bit risky, because the .config which is used for
> > compiling kernel/configs.c isn't necessarily the same as the .config which was
> > used to build vmlinux.
> 
> and that's why a module wasn't allowed.
> It's not worth the risk IMO.

I'd want to be hearing from distro people on that - I'd expect that the
.config which is used to build configs.ko would not differ from that which
is used to build vmlinux.

Plus it's configurable.

Am not particularly fussed either way, really.  It would be better if
treading on /proc/config.gz were to cause a modprobe of the driver for it,
but procfs doesn't work that way.
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