Re: [PATCH 02/38] Annotate hardware config module parameters in arch/x86/mm/

[David Howells]

Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > -module_param(mmio_address, ulong, 0);
> > +module_param_hw(mmio_address, ulong, iomem, 0);
> >  MODULE_PARM_DESC(mmio_address, " Start address of the mapping of 16 kB "
> >  				"(or 8 MB if read_far is non-zero).");
> 
> The copied boilerplate above is really nonsensical here. The default
> address is 0, so the init function will emit:
> 
>      pr_err("you have to use the module argument mmio_address.\n");
>      pr_err("DO NOT LOAD THIS MODULE UNLESS YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!\n");
> 
> Pretty useless when you can't supply a valid address.
> 
>        if (kernel_locked_down()) {
>        		pr_info("This is not allowed because ...");
> 		return -EPERM;
>        }
> 
> would make too much sense for the user, right?

In some drivers, this would be wrong - ipmi, for example - and we've already
been through this.  The hwparam series of patches annotates *all*
ioport/iomem/irq/dma specifiers unconditionally.  The hwparam series is the
way it is is because this has no overhead if it's not used - and also has the
potentially useful side effect of making such parameters greppable.

It may well make sense to add your above suggestion also - but in the other
patch series.

David