Message-ID: <3951889B.B4BFEA36@uow.edu.au>
Date:   Thu, 22 Jun 2000 03:31:39 +0000
From:   Andrew Morton <andrewm@uow.edu.au>
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To:     Rusty Russell <rusty@linuxcare.com.au>
CC:     Keith Owens <kaos@ocs.com.au>,
        "netdev@oss.sgi.com" <netdev@oss.sgi.com>
Subject: Re: modular net drivers
References: Your message of "Wed,
            21 Jun 2000 07:49:40 +1000." <4450.961537780@ocs3.ocs-net> <20000621065644.4B30A8154@halfway>
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Rusty Russell wrote:
> 
> module_cleanup should unregister everything first, before doing other
> cleaning up (which might sleep).

Yup.  module_cleanup() calls unregister_netdev().

It would be better to do the unregister_netdev(), then to wait for everyone to stop using the device (but how?) and to then reap the module.

> ...
> 
> I can provide code if this is still not clear how this keeps the
> penalty for being a module in the module, and does not pollute the
> rest of the kernel.

Please.

pseudo-code would suffice for me.


Guys, I don't think we're going to solve this one any time soon.

Unless Rusty has a trick up the sleeve I'll put together the patch which hoists the INC/DEC up into dev.c.  At least that fixes some open/close races.  Plus (here he goes
again) timer deletion races are much more important...