[OpenAFS-devel] Linux Kernel Module build question

[Derek Atkins]

Jeffrey Hutzelman <jhutz@cmu.edu> writes:

> I do.  Building software is a length an complex process.  It involves
> running lots of programs, and people usually don't go over every command
> that configure and make will invoke with a fine-toothed comb.  Building
> software as a privileged user is _dumb_, and we should not do anything to
> require that people do so.

I'm not asking any changes to OpenAFS in general be built as root.
Just the Red Hat RPM.  Someone just building OpenAFS for themselves
does not need to be root.

The only reasonable alternative that I've seen so far is to add a
header file to the source tree that is included 'first' so that I can
change that during the Red Hat build process.  Unfortunately that
would require changing ALL the source files to always include this
extra file first (even if the file needs to be a No-OP for everything
EXCEPT Red Hat).

I could theoretically use afsconfig.h for this, but unfortunately that
would require that afsconfig.h be included before afs/param.h, which
isn't the case.

Are we willing to make a change to the OpenAFS so that afsconfig.h is
always the _first_ included file in ALL kernel-module source files?
If so, then I can have afsconfig.h conditionally #include a
redhat-specific file which then includes /boot/kernel.h and then mucks
with it as suggested earlier.

The problem with this approach is that it's requiring a LOT of major
changes to the OpenAFS sources at large just to support a bug that Red
Hat introduced in their modifications to the kernel sources.  But I
have no objections is Derrick is willing to accept the changes.

> -- Jeff

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
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