From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from cantor2.suse.de ([195.135.220.15]:47096 "EHLO mx2.suse.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754810AbXFON2F (ORCPT ); Fri, 15 Jun 2007 09:28:05 -0400 From: Andi Kleen Subject: Re: [PATCH] Introduce compat_u64 and compat_s64 types Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 15:27:44 +0200 References: <200706151355.57464.ak@suse.de> <200706151454.28854.ak@suse.de> <20070615141544.5a8e234e@the-village.bc.nu> In-Reply-To: <20070615141544.5a8e234e@the-village.bc.nu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200706151527.45143.ak@suse.de> Sender: linux-arch-owner@vger.kernel.org To: Alan Cox Cc: David Howells , Arnd Bergmann , Benjamin Herrenschmidt , David Woodhouse , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Dave Airlie , linux-arch@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton List-ID: > And debug simulators that can be made to trap such accesses, and in most > cases processors which fault such an access (so you find it) but don't > provide enough information to restart. > > The testing isn't that hard for a given embedded system and having done > work Linux does not need other changes re-breaking things. Hopefully everybody who deploys these systems knows this. It seems like a open death trap to me, especially since the consequences are so severe: remote packet of death, could be a recall for a network conntected embedded device that doesn't easily allow firmware update. And they would rightfully blame Linux. It would be much safer if the parts of the stack that weren't audited/tested were marked this way and check for BROKEN_UNALIGNED or similar. Also frankly I'm surprised that whoever designed these systems didn't learn from the old M68000 who made this mistake the first time. -Andi