/dev/nvram driver

Tim Hockin (thockin@sun.com)
Fri, 22 Jun 2001 11:50:40 -0700


Who is maintaining the /dev/nvram driver? I have a couple things I want to
suggest/ask.

Currently it tracks O_EXCL on open() and sets a flag, whereby no other
open() calls can succeed. Is this functionality really needed? Perhaps it
should just be a reader/writer model : n readers or 1 writer. In that
case, should open() block on a writer, or return -EBUSY?

nvram_release() calls lock_kernel() - any particular reason?

various other bits (nvram_open_cnt, for example) are not SMP safe. I'm
making sure it is safe now.

What I really want to know is: should I bother making nvram_open_cnt SMP
safe, or should it just go away all together. I vote for the latter
option, unless something depends on this behavior (in which case, other
fixes are needed, because it is broken :).

comments?

-- 
Tim Hockin
Systems Software Engineer
Sun Microsystems, Cobalt Server Appliances
thockin@sun.com
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/