Re: [PATCH v2 0/3] livepatch: Introduce force sysfs attribute

From: Josh Poimboeuf
Date: Wed Aug 16 2017 - 11:26:23 EST


On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 04:50:07PM +0200, Petr Mladek wrote:
> On Fri 2017-08-11 16:11:31, Josh Poimboeuf wrote:
> > On Thu, Aug 10, 2017 at 12:48:12PM +0200, Miroslav Benes wrote:
> > > Now there is a sysfs attribute called "force", which provides two
> > > functionalities, "signal" and "force" (previously "unmark"). I haven't
> > > managed to come up with better names. Proposals are welcome. On the
> > > other hand I do not mind it much.
> >
> > Now "force" has two meanings, which is a little confusing. What do you
> > think about just having two separate write-only sysfs flags?
> >
> > echo 1 > /sys/kernel/livepatch/signal
> > echo 1 > /sys/kernel/livepatch/force
>
> I like the simplicity but I wonder if there might be more actions
> that need to be forced in the future. Then this might cause
> confusion.
>
> For example, we have force_module_load attribute in kGraft.
> It allows to load a module even when it is refused by a livepatch.
> It is handy when there is a harmless bug in the patch.

What if we put the flags in the per-patch dir?

/sys/kernel/livepatch/<patch>/signal
/sys/kernel/livepatch/<patch>/force

That seems pretty unambiguous. The "force" is specific to the patch, it
clearly means we are forcing the patch.

--
Josh