Re: exporting open_namei to modules

[Etay Meiri]

On Fri, Oct 12, 2001 at 08:03:33PM -0400, Alexander Viro wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sat, 13 Oct 2001, Etay Meiri wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Is there a particular reason why open_namei() is
> > not exported to modules?
> 
> 	Is there any reason for exporting it?  By default, stuff is _NOT_
> exported.  Think for a moment and you'll see why.  Exported functions are
> public API.  Protection is weaker than for syscalls, but it's there and
> exporting a function makes harder to do changes in core kernel.  Unless
> there are damn serious reasons for exporting something, it isn't done.
> 
> 	In particular, open_namei() is a helper function of filp_open(),
> which _is_ exported.  What use of open_namei() do you have in mind?

I'm writing a kernel file server. Unlike NFS, clients send me full paths
so I need to translate them to their respective inodes before calling
->open(...).
The reason I didn't use filp_open() in the first place is because it calls 
get_empty_filp() and, when I started writing this thing, didn't really understand
and so I thought it was better for me to call open_namei() directly and duplicate
some of the stuff that was going on in filp_open(). Now I see that there is a better
solution. 

Thanks Alexander.

> 
> 

-- 
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"When in doubt, use brute force."
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Etay Meiri
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