Re: [PATCH] Documentation: Fix incorrect paths/magic in magic numbers rst

[Nir Lichtman]

On Mon, Nov 04, 2024 at 01:10:56PM -0700, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> Nir Lichtman <nir@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> >
> > Agreed, it feels pretty much like abandoned book keeping that gives minimal
> > value since the chance of magics colliding is slim, but I think the general tip
> > before the table of magics is pretty good.
> >
> > What is your opinion about integrating the tip in a different page and deleting
> > this page entirely?
> 
> Well, that's part of my reasoning, actually.  I assume you're talking
> about this:
> 
> > It is a **very** good idea to protect kernel data structures with magic
> > numbers.  This allows you to check at run time whether (a) a structure
> > has been clobbered, or (b) you've passed the wrong structure to a
> > routine. 
> 
> The thing is, that's really not a guideline that anybody has followed
> for many years.  I dug into this a while back:
> 
>   https://lwn.net/Articles/915163/

Nice, interesting article and history

> 
> There was a series to remove all of this cruft a couple of years ago
> that the author eventually gave up on:
> 
>   https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/cover.1668128257.git.nabijaczleweli@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
> 
> Honestly, I think the best thing to do is to simply remove the file.

Agreed, looks like he got some pushback from removing the magics from
the source itself, but I don't think that should stop from removing this doc

Thanks,
Nir