It is not only ugly over belief but also unportable.
For example the mips port does not have a sys_call_table array at all,
on IA64 funktion pointer do _NOT_ fit into an unsigned long so at least
the prototype is wrong if it works at all.
> As a side effect it meant that any module that patched the
> sys_call_table (funky tracers, security hot-fixes, whatever)
> would work seamlessly with non-Linux binaries.
This is not only racy (no locking!) but also a loophole for binary
modules to do all kinds of crap (see http://www.sysinternals.com/linux/
utilities/filemon.shtml for details). In early 2.5 I will submit a patch
to remove the export, let's see wether it will be accepted.
>
> > Could you _please_ apply it - it is badly needed for foreign
> > personalities compiled as modules.
>
> I can't see why? iBCS always was a module for years before
> linux-abi dumped it back in a humungous kernel patch.
"Because we did it all the time it's right".
Of course it worked - that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
Arjan might want to comment on how gcc 2.96+ liked the old concept..
Christoph
-- Of course it doesn't work. We've performed a software upgrade. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/