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Re: Consensus around kernel syscall wrappers?
- From: "Carlos O'Donell" <carlos at redhat dot com>
- To: Joseph Myers <joseph at codesourcery dot com>
- Cc: Mike Frysinger <vapier at gentoo dot org>, Roland McGrath <roland at hack dot frob dot com>, GNU C Library <libc-alpha at sourceware dot org>
- Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2015 10:13:56 -0400
- Subject: Re: Consensus around kernel syscall wrappers?
- Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
- References: <55CCF8C6 dot 3060007 at redhat dot com> <alpine dot DEB dot 2 dot 10 dot 1508132025440 dot 7713 at digraph dot polyomino dot org dot uk>
On 08/13/2015 04:29 PM, Joseph Myers wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Aug 2015, Carlos O'Donell wrote:
>
>> Have we achieved consensus on the kernel syscall wrappers?
>
> I don't think there was consensus on any cases other than those where the
> syscall is added to the OS-independent GNU API. In
> <https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2015-05/msg00764.html> I suggested
> treating Linux as a source of APIs like BSD and SysV were in the past but
> don't think that part of the discussion got any further.
>
If I had to summarize the present situation it would be:
(a) All Linux syscalls that are considered useful for the OS-independent
GNU API should be added immediately.
(b) All Linux syscalls that are not considered useful for the OS-independent
GNU API should be added to an AS_NEEDED library named appropriately
e.g. libinux-syscalls.so.N, where this library is part of the implementation
and must be updated in lock-step with the implementation to ensure that
cancellation and other things are kept synchronized. It should not be a static
library to avoid security issues and to allow it to be updated.
Nobody opposed (b), and (a) was universally accepted.
Therefore I think we have a path forward.
(1) Add sensible syscalls to libc.so.6.
(2) Add a new library and put everything else in there.
- Following the WIP consensus about new headers to make
it clear the new functions are in another library.
- Minimally talk to Michael Kerrisk to get it documented
how to use these new features.
Cheers,
Carlos.