Re: namespace support requires network modules to say "GPL"

Mark Lord
2007-12-01T20:21:42Z

Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@linux-foundation.org> writes:
>
>> Actually, the whole mess would go away if the api for dev_get_by_XXXX hadn't
>> been changed in the namespace transition. IMHO the interface to
>> dev_get_by_name()
>> should not have added a namespace parameter, of the callers in the tree, only
>> two use a different namespace. So it would have been better to to introduce
>> dev_get_by_name_ns() with the extra parameter.
>
> As a general rule if you are calling dev_get_by_name and taking an &init_net
> parameter that means you code has not yet been converted to actually support
> network namespaces.
>
> Not everything can be safely changed at once so we take it by steps. When
> the code fully supports network namespaces practically nothing will take
> an &init_net parameter. The network namespace parameter will come in
> some form from userspace. Either from current or from the network
> socket.
>
> Except for boot time initialization I don't know of any cases using
> dev_get_by_XXXX that won't need to be modified before the network
> namespace work is complete.
>
> I believe I mentioned that this getting the fully network namespace
> support was going to take a while and a bunch of patches at the
> outset.
>
>> Can we get this resolved before 2.6.24 is released? Going back and forth
>> on API's is just needless frottage.
>
> Sure. We keep the updated dev_get_by_XXXX that takes a network
> namespace parameter.
..

And what should code be passing in when "# CONFIG_NET_NS is not set" ?