Re: [PATCH 1/2] eCryptfs: Public key; transport mechanism

[Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>]

On Wed, 6 Dec 2006 21:55:55 -0800 Andrew Morton wrote:

> On Wed, 6 Dec 2006 17:06:38 -0600
> Michael Halcrow <mhalcrow@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> 
> > This is a re-submission of the same public key patches (updated for
> > 2.6.19-rc6-mm2) that were submitted for review a while back.
> 
> I made a number of comments last time around, some temperate, some not.
> I trust the temperate ones were addressed?
> 
> Is there really no way in which any other kernel subsystem will ever want
> functionality of this nature?
> 
> > This is the transport code for public key functionality in
> > eCryptfs. It manages encryption/decryption request queues with a
> > transport mechanism. Currently, netlink is the only implemented
> > transport.
> 
> I wouldn't view this as an adequate changelog for this sort of work,
> frankly.  Not by a long shot.  You've told us very briefly what the patches
> do.  You haven't told us why they do it, nor how they do it.
> 
> What design decisions went into this?  What options were considered and
> eliminated and why?  etc.
> 
> It's just a great lump of code dumped in our laps.
> 
> 
> >From a quick scan (and I cannot review in more depth because the code is a
> complete mystery to this reviewer):
> 
> 
> > +	mutex_init(&ecryptfs_msg_ctx_lists_mux);
> > +	mutex_lock(&ecryptfs_msg_ctx_lists_mux);
> 
> That's a bizarre thing to do.  If there's really any other process which
> can take that mutex, the mutex_init() just trashed it.  If there is no
> other such process, the mutex_lock() is unneeded.  There should never be
> a need to runtime-initialise a static mutex - just use DEFINE_MUTEX.
> 
> 
> ecryptfs now has a dependency upon netlink.  There's no CONFIG_NETLINK.  If
> CONFIG_NET=n && CONFIG_ECRYPTFS=y is possible, it won't build.

Then shouldn't ECRYPTFS depend on CONFIG_NET ?

---
~Randy