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Date:      Mon, 05 Jun 2000 08:44:29 -0700
From:      Mike Smith <msmith@freebsd.org>
To:        "Yevmenkin, Maksim N, CSCIO" <myevmenkin@att.com>
Cc:        hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: kerneld for FreeBSD 
Message-ID:  <200006051544.IAA17524@mass.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 05 Jun 2000 09:40:30 EDT." <E598F159668DD311B9C700902799EAF4473415@njb140po01.ems.att.com> 

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> > On Sun 2000-06-04 (23:06), Coleman Kane wrote:
> > > Look through /modules...
> > 
> > I'm still having problems working out what this will do.  Can you
> > explain the differences between the current way of doing things, and
> > what your stuff will conceptually do?
> > 
> 
> i will try :-) please do not beat me :-)
> 
> 1) right now we have several places in kernel/user space where we 
> load KLD. if we need add dynamic module loading in some new 
> place we  will have to duplicate all code

This isn't necessarily bad, as it is this code which determines the 
criteria for loading a module.  I'm not entirely keen on having this 
thrown away; especially since all you'd be doing would be replacing it 
with code which would invoke the kernel daemon.

> 2) kernel/user space does not unload modules, unless you
> unload it manually

This is, IMO, a good idea.  I certainly don't want some smartass daemon 
unloading a module just because it thinks it should. 8)

> 3) we can not configure which module should be loaded. 
> it is hardcoded

Since the code knows what it wants, this isn't necessarily a bad thing 
either.  In most cases, part of the module name is actually parametric, 
eg. in the ifconfig(8) case, so this isn't as much of a problem as it 
sounds.

Basically, I think that the current practice of demand-loading modules 
from inside the kernel is the way to go.  There are a couple of cases 
where pushing them in from the outside (ifconfig, usb, pccard) works, but 
in each case these already have tools suited to the job.

-- 
\\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\  Mike Smith
\\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself,  \\  msmith@freebsd.org
\\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime.             \\  msmith@cdrom.com




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