Summary of modules changes for the 5.4 merge window:
- Introduce exported symbol namespaces.
This new feature allows subsystem maintainers to partition and
categorize their exported symbols into explicit namespaces. Module
authors are now required to import the namespaces they need.
Some of the main motivations of this feature include: allowing kernel
developers to better manage the export surface, allow subsystem
maintainers to explicitly state that usage of some exported symbols
should only be limited to certain users (think: inter-module or
inter-driver symbols, debugging symbols, etc), as well as more easily
limiting the availability of namespaced symbols to other parts of the
kernel. With the module import requirement, it is also easier to spot
the misuse of exported symbols during patch review. Two new macros are
introduced: EXPORT_SYMBOL_NS() and EXPORT_SYMBOL_NS_GPL(). The API is
thoroughly documented in Documentation/kbuild/namespaces.rst.
- Some small code and kbuild cleanups here and there.
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Merge tag 'modules-for-v5.4' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jeyu/linux
Pull modules updates from Jessica Yu:
"The main bulk of this pull request introduces a new exported symbol
namespaces feature. The number of exported symbols is increasingly
growing with each release (we're at about 31k exports as of 5.3-rc7)
and we currently have no way of visualizing how these symbols are
"clustered" or making sense of this huge export surface.
Namespacing exported symbols allows kernel developers to more
explicitly partition and categorize exported symbols, as well as more
easily limiting the availability of namespaced symbols to other parts
of the kernel. For starters, we have introduced the USB_STORAGE
namespace to demonstrate the API's usage. I have briefly summarized
the feature and its main motivations in the tag below.
Summary:
- Introduce exported symbol namespaces.
This new feature allows subsystem maintainers to partition and
categorize their exported symbols into explicit namespaces. Module
authors are now required to import the namespaces they need.
Some of the main motivations of this feature include: allowing
kernel developers to better manage the export surface, allow
subsystem maintainers to explicitly state that usage of some
exported symbols should only be limited to certain users (think:
inter-module or inter-driver symbols, debugging symbols, etc), as
well as more easily limiting the availability of namespaced symbols
to other parts of the kernel.
With the module import requirement, it is also easier to spot the
misuse of exported symbols during patch review.
Two new macros are introduced: EXPORT_SYMBOL_NS() and
EXPORT_SYMBOL_NS_GPL(). The API is thoroughly documented in
Documentation/kbuild/namespaces.rst.
- Some small code and kbuild cleanups here and there"
* tag 'modules-for-v5.4' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jeyu/linux:
module: Remove leftover '#undef' from export header
module: remove unneeded casts in cmp_name()
module: move CONFIG_UNUSED_SYMBOLS to the sub-menu of MODULES
module: remove redundant 'depends on MODULES'
module: Fix link failure due to invalid relocation on namespace offset
usb-storage: export symbols in USB_STORAGE namespace
usb-storage: remove single-use define for debugging
docs: Add documentation for Symbol Namespaces
scripts: Coccinelle script for namespace dependencies.
modpost: add support for generating namespace dependencies
export: allow definition default namespaces in Makefiles or sources
module: add config option MODULE_ALLOW_MISSING_NAMESPACE_IMPORTS
modpost: add support for symbol namespaces
module: add support for symbol namespaces.
export: explicitly align struct kernel_symbol
module: support reading multiple values per modinfo tag