Re: [PATCH 1/2] eCryptfs: Public key; transport mechanism

From: Randy Dunlap
Date: Sat Dec 09 2006 - 14:04:20 EST


On Wed, 6 Dec 2006 21:55:55 -0800 Andrew Morton wrote:

> On Wed, 6 Dec 2006 17:06:38 -0600
> Michael Halcrow <mhalcrow@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > This is a re-submission of the same public key patches (updated for
> > 2.6.19-rc6-mm2) that were submitted for review a while back.
>
> I made a number of comments last time around, some temperate, some not.
> I trust the temperate ones were addressed?
>
> Is there really no way in which any other kernel subsystem will ever want
> functionality of this nature?
>
> > This is the transport code for public key functionality in
> > eCryptfs. It manages encryption/decryption request queues with a
> > transport mechanism. Currently, netlink is the only implemented
> > transport.
>
> I wouldn't view this as an adequate changelog for this sort of work,
> frankly. Not by a long shot. You've told us very briefly what the patches
> do. You haven't told us why they do it, nor how they do it.
>
> What design decisions went into this? What options were considered and
> eliminated and why? etc.
>
> It's just a great lump of code dumped in our laps.
>
>
> >From a quick scan (and I cannot review in more depth because the code is a
> complete mystery to this reviewer):
>
>
> > + mutex_init(&ecryptfs_msg_ctx_lists_mux);
> > + mutex_lock(&ecryptfs_msg_ctx_lists_mux);
>
> That's a bizarre thing to do. If there's really any other process which
> can take that mutex, the mutex_init() just trashed it. If there is no
> other such process, the mutex_lock() is unneeded. There should never be
> a need to runtime-initialise a static mutex - just use DEFINE_MUTEX.
>
>
> ecryptfs now has a dependency upon netlink. There's no CONFIG_NETLINK. If
> CONFIG_NET=n && CONFIG_ECRYPTFS=y is possible, it won't build.

Then shouldn't ECRYPTFS depend on CONFIG_NET ?

---
~Randy
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