Re: 2.6.36/2.6.37: broken compatibility with userspace input-utils ?

Mark Lord
2011-01-25T00:32:12Z

On 11-01-24 12:54 PM, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
> Hi Mark,
>
> On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 12:03:47PM -0500, Mark Lord wrote:
>> As of the 2.6.36 kernel, the userspace commands lsinput and input-kbd
>> no longer work. And if I grab newer/patched versions of those from the latest
>> Ubuntu 10.10, then those newer/patched versions do not work with kernels
>> *before* 2.6.36.
>>
>> At first glance, this looks like a visible regression.
>> Is there a version of input-utils that works with both
>> old and new kernels ?
>>
>
> The event protocol number was updated to reflect support of large
> scancodes, unfortunately some of the utilities expected exact version
> and refuse to work with updated one.

So is there a danger of memory corruption if running a binary
that doesn't check the version number?

In other words, did the size and/or format of returned data
change for an ioctl() or something here?

If so, then that is a user-visible regression, and shouldn't happen.
One correct way to handle that, would be to create a new ioctl(),
and mark the old one as deprecated, for removal a few years later perhaps.

???

Thanks