Bug 528500
| Summary: | Linux Kernel no longer provides non-GPL access to gendisk partition information | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Product: | [Fedora] Fedora | Reporter: | Derek Atkins <warlord> |
| Component: | kernel | Assignee: | Kernel Maintainer List <kernel-maint> |
| Status: | CLOSED NOTABUG | QA Contact: | Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa> |
| Severity: | high | Docs Contact: | |
| Priority: | low | ||
| Version: | 11 | CC: | dougsland, gansalmon, itamar, kernel-maint |
| Target Milestone: | --- | ||
| Target Release: | --- | ||
| Hardware: | All | ||
| OS: | Linux | ||
| Whiteboard: | |||
| Fixed In Version: | Doc Type: | Bug Fix | |
| Doc Text: | Story Points: | --- | |
| Clone Of: | Environment: | ||
| Last Closed: | 2009-10-13 04:35:02 UTC | Type: | --- |
| Regression: | --- | Mount Type: | --- |
| Documentation: | --- | CRM: | |
| Verified Versions: | Category: | --- | |
| oVirt Team: | --- | RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host: | |
| Cloudforms Team: | --- | Target Upstream Version: | |
| Embargoed: | |||
This isn't something that Fedora changed, so this doesn't belong in Fedora bugzilla. If you want this changed, you're going to have to get it done upstream at linux-kernel.org |
Description of problem: I've got a proprietary kernel disk driver that needs to access the disk partition information in order to gather information like: * how many real partitions are there? * for each partition, what is the: - partition number? - starting offset? - size? I used to be able to just iterate over the gendisk->part[] array, but as of 2.6.29 in F11 this array is now hidden behind a GPL-ONLY RCU interface and a GPL-ONLY iterator interface. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): kernel-2.6.29 and 2.6.30 How reproducible: 100% Steps to Reproduce: 1. write a non-GPL kernel module 2. try to find some way to access gendisk partition information 3. realize it's all GPL-Only now. Actual results: The partition data is all behind RCU which is GPL-Only... And the iterator functions are also GPL-Only.. Which effectively hides the partition array behind a GPL-Only interface whereas it used to be available. So now there is no non-GPL way to access disk partitions. Expected results: Linux shouldn't hide data structures behind GPL-Only interfaces when those structures used to be accessible to non-GPL modules. Additional info: The quick fix would be to make the partition iterator interfaces available to non-GPL modules. I think that would solve all the problems.. While it would be nice to be able to access the disk_get_part() API I could implement one if I had the iterator available.