Re: devfs: BKL *not* taken while opening devices

Arjan van de Ven
2002-04-29T17:21:37Z

Dave Hansen wrote:
>
> Russell King wrote:
> > Kernel 2.5.8... Devfs devfs_open() bypasses the normal chrdev_open
> > and blkdev_open functions, and misses out taking the BKL. 2.5.10 is
> > the same.
> >
> > Certainly the tty layer (and probably many of the other devices as
> > well) require the BKL to be taken before calling the open method.
>
> Has the time come to push the BKL down into all of the driver open()s?
> It's going to be a lot of work, but it has to happen eventually, right?

I'm not convinced of that. It's not nearly a critical path and it's
better to get even the "dumb" drivers safe than to risk having big
security holes in there for years to come.