Re: [PATCH] tpm: add support for partial reads

[Tadeusz Struk]

On 07/19/2018 12:52 PM, James Bottomley wrote:
> The ABI break is the error case as I outlined above.  We can't assume
> everyone uses the current interface without getting an error and one
> error and your hosed is a nasty failure case to change the interface
> to. 

Well, if there is a broken application out there that doesn't work today
it will not work after this change neither.

> Plus, if you assume everyone is passing 4k buffers, why would you
> even need the fragmentation case?

So that people don't need to do this anymore and we can run a
spec compliant TCTI on top of /dev/tpm<N>.

> 
>>> It might be possible to layer the behaviour you want compatibly
>>> into the current device structure (say an ioctl to switch to the
>>> fragment behaviour) but I've got to ask why we'd go to the
>>> complexity without a use case?
>> New IOCTL would add extra complexity, which isn't necessary.
> So what's wrong with fragmenting in the layer above the device driver
> (in userspace) and not actually changing the kernel?

Because it is much easier to implement in the driver, and
we can run a spec compliant TCTI on top of /dev/tpm<N>.

Thanks,
-- 
Tadeusz