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Subject: Re: Modutils can't handle long kernel names
From: Robert Love <rml@tech9.net>
To: Mike Fedyk <mfedyk@matchmail.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
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Date: 09 Nov 2001 00:40:12 -0500
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On Fri, 2001-11-09 at 00:23, Mike Fedyk wrote:
> I've gotten into the habbit of adding the names of the patches I add to my
> kernel to the extraversion string in the top level Makefile in my kernels.

Everything in-kernel is going to be OK because we set the version string
like so:

	char version[] = UTS_RELEASE;

where UTS_RELEASE is set from the variables in your Makefile.  Thus, the
string is set to the exact size of your version on compile.  If you find
anywhere _inside the kernel_ that breaks with long strings, it is
probably a bug.

Userspace is a different story.  In general, most programs probably do
not have dynamic off-the-heap storage for the version string size. 
Added such a feature may be advantageous in some cases, but in many it
is overkill and not worth the dynamic memory management.

I would consider the case where a large string crashes a user space
program a bug.  While the program may choose to set some limit, it
should certainly check its buffers.  I would also consider an abnormally
small legal string size a bug, but I honestly don't see your version
size fitting that description. :)

Anyhow, if you want to change it in a given app, its a simple size that
needs to be changed and then recompile.

	Robert Love

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