From owner-freebsd-current Thu Apr 20 3:56:13 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mailgate.originative.co.uk (mailgate.originative.co.uk [194.217.50.228]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 681F037B87A for ; Thu, 20 Apr 2000 03:56:10 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from paul@originative.co.uk) Received: from originative.co.uk (lobster.originative.co.uk [194.217.50.241]) by mailgate.originative.co.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4550E1D15F; Thu, 20 Apr 2000 11:56:08 +0100 (BST) Message-ID: <38FEE248.62AF3FE6@originative.co.uk> Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 11:56:08 +0100 From: Paul Richards Organization: Originative Solutions Ltd X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.12 i386) X-Accept-Language: en-GB, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Warner Losh Cc: Alex Zepeda , current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Stale modules (Re: panic in the morning) References: <000365a645d89ae9_mailit@mail.pacbell.net> <200004200731.BAA07337@harmony.village.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Warner Losh wrote: > > In message <000365a645d89ae9_mailit@mail.pacbell.net> Alex Zepeda writes: > : Perhaps it's time to implement some sort of versioning in the modules to > : prevent them from being loaded into the incorrect kernel. > > In theory that sounds nice, but in -current the kernel ABI changes too > quickly for that to be effecitve. The general rule in -current is > that the modules must be compiled at the same time as the kernel, or > from the same sources. Anything else might work, but is unsupported. > I don't know of a good way to serialize (eg assign a serial number to) > the sources that would work. Why not just use a UTC timestamp? If your kernel is newer than the module then don't load the module. Maybe make it a sysctl as well so that rapid developer folks can disable it. Even if it was used just as a warning it would remind people to think about the modules. I've lost count of the number of times that I've chased a kernel bug before remembering to rebuild modules. I know a timestamp doesn't guarantess ABI compatibility but it solves the most common problem, which is rebuilding a kernel but forgetting to rebuild the modules. Paul. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message