Re: [2.6 patch] kernel/audit.c: change the exports to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL

Steve Grubb
2007-07-30T13:19:16Z

On Sunday 29 July 2007 11:02:33 Adrian Bunk wrote:
> They are still completely unused, but hopefully some of the theoretical
> code that might use it will appear in the kernel in the near future...
>
> Signed-off-by: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
> Acked-by: Steve Grubb <sgrubb@redhat.com>

I am reluctant to say that I ack this patch for a couple reasons:

1) We are talking about a basic logging facility that should be open like
printk() is.

2) There are no user space GPL restrictions to use the audit netlink API, so
why restrict who can send audit events via the in-kernel interfaces? It just
doesn't make sense to have 2 different licenses for in-kernel vs user space
audit event recording. Its the same subsystem differing only by where the
event originated.

3) The API has been unrestricted for years. I don't think its a good idea to
take a basic logging API away from people that have programmed to it.

4) In the absence of the in-kernel audit logging api, people will either
create parallel infrastructure or resort to using printk. It will be
difficult for end users to correlate security events from 2 different logs.

I would support there being a mechanism for anyone who wants to reduce the
number of exported symbols for their own kernels - I believe that is the
basic problem here. But I think there are enough reasons to continue keeping
this API open and unrestricted for anyone that wants it that way.

-Steve