lkml.org 
[lkml]   [2004]   [Nov]   [3]   [last100]   RSS Feed
Views: [wrap][no wrap]   [headers]  [forward] 
 
Messages in this thread
/
SubjectRe: is killing zombies possible w/o a reboot?
From
Date
Russell Miller <rmiller@duskglow.com> writes:

> Wouldn't it help with device driver problems? Couldn't ring 1 be
> used to make sure an errant driver doesn't drop the kernel, at least
> on x86 machines?

As I understand it:

1) Ring transitions aren't free.
2) The API between drivers and kernel is always in flux; drivers
expect to be able to access internal kernel data structures.
Making drivers run in ring 1 on even one of the N architectures
would be a major refactoring and would constrain API changes.
Freezing the internal API is something the developers don't want to
do.
3) There are probably plenty of ways for a buggy driver to crash the
kernel even if it's running in ring 1 (turn off interrupts and
leave them off, etc).

So the upshot is that it's probably not worth the work and portability
hassles.

-Doug
-
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/

\
 
 \ /
  Last update: 2005-03-22 14:07    [W:0.249 / U:0.080 seconds]
©2003-2020 Jasper Spaans|hosted at Digital Ocean and TransIP|Read the blog|Advertise on this site