Re: Special place for tird-party modules.

[Goran Cengic <cengic@s2.chalmers.se>]

On Wednesday 28 April 2004 21.18, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 18:14:24 +0200, Goran Cengic <cengic@s2.chalmers.se>  
said:
> > I do understand that many developers have several kernel version
> > installed at the same time but is it possible to share between the
> > versions at least the modules that are not developed as the part of the
> > kernel?
> >
> > If I'm missing something cruical please point it out to me.
>
> What you're missing is the reason for modversions to exist - the fact that
> the kernel API *does* change between releases, and even within the same
> source tree (UP vs SMP builds, for instance).  If we supported what you're
> suggesting, then the following *will* happen:
>
> 1) Binary module for 2.6.N is released that uses an API that takes 5
> parameters. 2) 2.6.N+1 comes out, and said API has another parameter added
> (see the recent tweak-fest for elf_map() for an actual example).
> 3) User loads old binary into kernel.
> 4) Kernel OOPs when it dereferences the non-existent 6th parameter that
> wasn't passed by the un-updated binary.

Ok, I get it :) Thank you!

/Goran

----------------------------------
Goran Cengic
mailto:cengic@s2.chalmers.se
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Have a nice day :)