Re: [patch] My AMD IDE driver, v2.7

Martin Dalecki
2002-03-12T11:13:20Z

Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
>> The only common factor here is the "synchronize with other requests" - I
>> feel strongly (much more strongly than any parsing notion) that the raw
>> requests have to be passed down the "struct request" and NOT be done the
>> way they are traditionally done (ie completely outside the request
>> stream,
>> with no synchronization at all with any IO currently in progress).
>>
> agreed
>
>>> I think "future new commands" is total FUD, the idea that some new
>>> command
>>> would come along and be so instantly popular, useful and incompatible
>>> that
>>> all Linux boxes would require it before the next kernel or driver update
>>> is silly at best, and I'm working hard to keep this on a civil plane.
>>>
>>
>> It has nothing to do with "new" commands, and everything to do with
>> "random vendor-specific commands and the vendor-specific tools". Commands
>> that simply should _never_ be parsed in the kernel, because we do not
>> want
>> to care about 10 different vendors 10 different revisions of their
>> firmware having 10 different small random special commands for that
>> particular drive.
>>
>> In particular, a user that upgrades his hardware should never _ever_ have
>> to upgrade his kernel just because some random disk diagnostic tool needs
>> support for a disk that is new and has new diagnostics.
>>
> Are such random vendor-specific commands really that common?
>
> Linus, would it be acceptable to you to include an -optional- filter for
> ATA commands? There is definitely a segment of users that would like to
> firewall their devices, and I think (as crazy as it may sound) that
> notion is a valid one.

If you are *trully paranoid* and want to *fire wall* your device then
the proper way of doing this is to DISABLE those ioctl entierly.
It simple like that. They are not required for regular operation by
concept. Other then this I see no argument here.