On Thu, 8 Mar 2007 14:11:28 -0800 Jean Tourrilhes wrote: > On Thu, Mar 08, 2007 at 08:40:01PM +0100, Johannes Berg wrote: > > On Thu, 2007-03-08 at 11:34 -0800, Jouni Malinen wrote: > > > > > Yes, workaround in just iwlib is not enough. If the only possible > > > solution is user space workaround, it better be documented (and > > > communicated to maintainers of user space apps) well so that > > > all user space programs not using iwlib can be modified, too. > > > > The more I think about it the worse it gets. Think about wireless events > > where both 32 and 64-bit userspace programs may be listening... That > > means we can't even fix it in the kernel without breaking something. > > > > johannes > > This is exactly what I was pointing out earlier. Well, > actually, there may be ways of fixing it in the kernel, but that would > be real ugly, and I don't want to go there. > > I've just released wireless_tools.29.pre15.tar.gz. This is > supposed to include a "band-aid" for that problem. To the best of my > knowledge, it should catch the problem and not introduce false > positive. I would be glad if you guys would have a quick look into it, > because obviously I can't test it. > > Now, about the way forward... > First possiblity, we could stick with this band-aid > permanently. > > Second possiblity : we do the right thing and plan a API > change to return struct always aligned on 32 bits. This way, when we > get 128 bit processor, we don't have to add another band aid ;-) > It would work like the ESSID changeover. We pick a WE version > changeover. We introduce userspace that can deal with before and > after. After 1 or 2 years, we flip the switch. After another 1 or 2 > years, we get rid of backward compatibility. > > Third possibility : we declare 32 bit userspace on 64 bit > kernel as not supported and advise users to get a 64 bit > userspace. The number of bug report on that issue would suggest that > very few users are in this case. I think that this is not actually an option since powerpc64 is all 32-bit userspace. Maybe some other arch-es are like this also (?). > I know the userspace guys will hate (1) and hate even more (2). > > Regards, > > Jean --- ~Randy *** Remember to use Documentation/SubmitChecklist when testing your code *** - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wireless" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
