Re: lk 2.5.49 module frustration

[Doug Ledford <dledford@redhat.com>]

On Sat, Nov 23, 2002 at 02:14:42PM +1100, Douglas Gilbert wrote:
> Hopefully others are having more success with the new
> module loader than I am. My system is basically RH8.0
> with the new module-init-tools (version 0.7) loaded
> and the recent 2.5.49 kernel.
> 
> During system load there is noise (failure?) on calls
> to modprobe since the new command doesn't support the same
> switches as the old. [harmless?]

It doesn't yet.  It's intended to.

> My lsmod looks like this:
> # lsmod
> Module                  Size  Used by
> scsi_debug             29423  0 [unsafe]
> ohci1394               21561  0
> ieee1394               41773  1 ohci1394 [unsafe]
> parport_pc             18883  0 [unsafe]
> parport                30228  1 parport_pc [unsafe]
> ehci_hcd               32801  0
> usbcore                90237  3 ehci_hcd
> 
> Those "unsafe" dependencies wedge in a module, making
> it hard to remove them. In the case of scsi_debug about
> 30 seconds after it is loaded I get this on my console:
> # Module scsi_debug cannot be unloaded due to unsafe
> # usage in fs/proc/inode.c:204
> That is procfs calling __MOD_INC_USE_COUNT. Is that our
> problem (i.e. shouldn't RR fix that before he lets this
> stuff loose on us)?

I posted a patch for this almost a week back.  It didn't get picked up, so 
I put this particular fix into my tree that I uploaded and announced 
today.

> Are all the MODULE_* macros now dead? I can no longer
> get any load time options/parameters through to the
> scsi_debug. Nothing useful comes out of modinfo.

Yes, it's very much a work in process, not a completed change over.  Rusty 
has publically stated that he thinks he bit off more than he can chew and 
I know he's taken a lot of flak over this change.  However, there *are* 
positive parts to Rusty's work and it does in fact solve the races he says 
it solves (at least once you convert things like fs/proc/inode.c to know 
about the fact that getting a module *can* fail) and as soon as you get 
the remaining parts of the kernel to properly grab module references when 
calling into a module.  Myself and Cristoph already did that basic job for 
the SCSI layer.

> Where is the ..... documentation?
> $ ls -l modules.txt
> -rw-r--r--    1 1046     101          9441 Feb 17  2001 modules.txt

Yes, that's another thing that isn't complete.

-- 
  Doug Ledford <dledford@redhat.com>     919-754-3700 x44233
         Red Hat, Inc. 
         1801 Varsity Dr.
         Raleigh, NC 27606