Messages in this thread | | | From | Matthew Dharm <> | Date | Wed, 4 Sep 2019 09:16:07 -0700 | Subject | Re: [usb-storage] Re: [PATCH v4 12/12] RFC: watchdog: export core symbols in WATCHDOG_CORE namespace |
| |
On Wed, Sep 4, 2019 at 5:12 AM Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net> wrote: > > Note that I don't object to the patch set in general. There may be symbols > which only need be exported in the context of a single subsystem or even > driver (if a driver consists of more than one module). For example, a mfd > driver may export symbols which should only be called by its client drivers. > In such a situation, it may well be beneficial to limit the use of exported > symbols.
I can appreciate this benefit.
> I am not sure what good that does in practice (if I understand correctly, > a driver only has to declare that it wants to use a restricted use symbol > if it wants to use it), but that is a different question.
I think this question implies that you are coming from the perspective of "security" or wanting to restrict access to the underlying functions, rather than wanting to clean-up the way symbols are handled for manageability / maintainability purposes (which is the goal, as I understand it).
HOWEVER, I have one question: If these patches are included, and someone wants to introduce a bit of code which needs to use two symbols from different namespaces but with the same name, can that be done? That is, if driver A has symbol 'foo' and driver B has symbol 'foo' (both in their respective namespaces), and driver C wants to use A.foo and B.foo, can that be supported?
Matt
-- Matthew Dharm Former Maintainer, USB Mass Storage driver for Linux
| |