Re: Announce loop-AES-v3.1c file/swap crypto package

[Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org>]

On Sat, Jan 21, 2006 at 06:27:36PM +0200, Jari Ruusu wrote:
> Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> > Either something is missing in the support for external modules in the
> > kernel or you are overdoing some stuff. If there is something missing in
> > the kernel to support external modules then please say so, so it can be
> > fixed.
> 
> Missing functionality:
> 1) "make M=/path/to/dir modules_install" does not run depmod. Pulling
>    correct depmod info from kernel Makefile needs ugly hacks.
Fixed in latest kbuild.
One day I need to get full grip on the module-init-tools stuff....

> 2) Try building external module A that exports some function, and then build
>    another external module B (separate package, only knows function
>    prototype) that uses said exported function. And I mean build it cleanly
>    without puking error messages on me. 2.4 and older kernel got that right,
>    but 2.6 is still FUBAR. Serious regression here.
This was always possible using a kbuild file specifying all relevant
modules. But accepting this is not always doable kbuild now add an
additional method.
build module a
copy Module.symvers from module a to module b.
Voila, module b has full access to symbols from module a. This includes
module versioning support.
Both methods are documented in Documentation/kbuild/modules.txt now.


Both changes are in my kbuild.git tree and I will send out a series of
patches to lkml soon. It will be available for testing in next -mm too.

Thanks for input, and please let me know if you know of more
shortcomings in kbuild that needs to be addressed.

	Sam