Re: module-init-tools/udev and module auto-loading

[Martin Schlemmer <azarah@nosferatu.za.org>]

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On Tue, 2004-02-03 at 02:55, Rusty Russell wrote:
> In message <1075748550.6931.10.camel@nosferatu.lan> you write:
> > > This does not cover the class of things which are entirely created by
> > > the driver (eg. dummy devices, socket families), so cannot be
> > > "detected".  Many of these (eg. socket families) can be handled by
> > > explicit request_module() in the core and MODULE_ALIAS in the driver.
> > > Some of them cannot at the moment: the first the kernel knows of them
> > > is an attempt to open the device.  Some variant of devfs would solve
> > > this.
> > > 
> > 
> > I guess there will be cries of murder if 'somebody' suggested that if
> > a node in /dev is opened, but not there, the kernel can call
> > 'modprobe -q /dev/foo' to load whatever alias there might have been?
> 
> I think it's an excellent idea, although ideally we would have this
> mechanism in userspace as much as possible.  Anything from some
> special hack to block -ENOENT on directory lookups and notify an fd,
> to some exotic overlay filesystem.
> 

I was thinking of just delaying the failure or such, depending on the
modprobe outcome.  Should not be much if any overhead, although I have
not looked at the code.


-- 
Martin Schlemmer

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