Re: [PATCH RFC 0/4] Introduce uts_release

[John Garry <john.g.garry@oracle.com>]

On 05/02/2024 23:10, Masahiro Yamada wrote:
>>> I think what you can contribute are:
>>>
>>>    - Explore the UTS_RELEASE users, and check if you can get rid of it.
>> Unfortunately I expect resistance for this. I also expect places like FW
>> loader it is necessary. And when this is used in sysfs, people will say
>> that it is part of the ABI now.
>>
>> How about I send the patch to update to use init_uts_ns and mention also
>> that it would be better to not use at all, if possible? I can cc you.
> 
> OK.
> 
> 
> As I mentioned in the previous reply, the replacement is safe
> for builtin code.
> 
> When you touch modular code, please pay a little more care,
> because UTS_RELEASE and init_utsname()->release
> may differ when CONFIG_MODVERSIONS=y.
> 

Are you saying that we may have a different release version kernel and 
module built with CONFIG_MODVERSIONS=y, and the module was using 
UTS_RELEASE for something? That something may be like setting some info 
in a sysfs file, like in this example:

static ssize_t target_core_item_version_show(struct config_item *item,
		char *page)
{
	return sprintf(page, "Target Engine Core ConfigFS Infrastructure %s"
		" on %s/%s on "UTS_RELEASE"\n", TARGET_CORE_VERSION,
		utsname()->sysname, utsname()->machine);
}

And the intention is to use the module codebase release version and not 
the kernel codebase release version. Hence utsname() is used for 
.sysname and .machine, but not .release .

Thanks,
John