From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Al Viro Subject: Re: [PATCH] Introduce vfs_listxattr Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2006 21:42:13 +0100 Message-ID: <20061009204213.GZ29920@ftp.linux.org.uk> References: <20061009201048.GA4707@filer.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu> <20061009133332.5c8285ce.akpm@osdl.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Josef Sipek , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, notting@redhat.com, torvalds@osdl.org, hch@infradead.org, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org Return-path: To: Andrew Morton Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20061009133332.5c8285ce.akpm@osdl.org> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org On Mon, Oct 09, 2006 at 01:33:32PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote: > On Mon, 9 Oct 2006 16:10:48 -0400 > Josef Sipek wrote: > > > This patch moves code out of fs/xattr.c:listxattr into a new function - > > vfs_listxattr. The code for vfs_listxattr was originally submitted by Bill > > Nottingham to Unionfs. > > That tells us what the patch does. In general, please be sure to also tell > us *why* you prepared a patch. > > Does this patch allow unionfs to be loaded into an otherwise unpatched > kernel.org kernel? If so, that seems to be a good reason for including > this patch into the mainline kernel. Generally I'd say that it makes sense. Anything that wants to access the method in question would either have to play with set_fs() or open-code it; neither is good. It makes sense to localize calls of a method when we have pretty much mandatory framing for it (security_... stuff). So the only question is whether it makes sense for anything other than syscall itself to access the method in question. AFAICS, the answer's yes...