Binary kernel modules are dead in 2008--now what
It was decided today on LKML that starting in January 2008, binary modules are no longer going to be loadable in the Linux kernel. This has some rather major consequences for a number of virtualization technologies.
Parallels, Win4Lin, kqemu, and VMware rely on binary modules for their Linux products. I suspect all of these products will have a hard time moving their code out of kernel space seeing that it's performance sensitive. So what are they all going to do? I see three possible options: 1) drop Linux support (Win4lin and kqemu disappear completely) 2) build a minimal kernel interface to privilege state and try to develop fast userspace interfaces. I can't see how one could do a fast userspace shadow paging implementation though. 3) open source the kernel bits.
Everyone's focused on management now right? Can you imagine if the VMware binary translator was GPL'd? Kudos to the kernel developers for finally doing the right thing here.
Update: Linus is insisting that the distros merge this patch first before he'll take it.
posted by Anthony Liguori at 7:45 PM
9 Comments:
Why would VMware care? They have a commercial support license from RedHat, who provides support for VMware's "ConsoleOS", and such VMware can install any binary module that they desire.
VMware's vmmon module is _not_ binary-only, though it is not GPL'd (unfortunately).
it looks like the only binary stuff in vmware modules comes with the vmnet-only driver - so maybe it`s not a big issue......
linux:/usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/untarred # find . -type f -exec file {} \; |egrep -v "ASCII|text|empty"
./vmnet-only/smac_linux.x86_64.o_shipped: ELF 64-bit LSB relocatable, AMD x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), not stripped
./vmnet-only/smac_linux.x386.o_shipped: ELF 32-bit LSB relocatable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), not stripped
Win4Lin would like people to know that they have worked with the author of KQEMU to make it available as open source effective 2/8. Win4Lin is in the clear.
Also, Win4Lin will very soon also support KVM.
Jim
Oops, I meant available as of 2/7 not 2/8.
Sorry for confusion.
Jim
Hi Jim,
Thanks for being involved in this! Have you all made a press release or any kind of official statement? Win4Lin's involvement is not widely known ATM.
Regards,
Anthony Liguori
The only thing complicated is most of the users nowadays tends to use windows rather than Linux. So why take the time fixing something that doesn't even make other people bother?binary option
The Linux kernel mailing list (LKML) has returned to the oft-discussed topic of binary kernel modules. Considered by some to be a violation of the open source license used by the Linux kernel, binary modules are proprietary software components (usually hardware drivers) that interface with the Linux kernel and provide additional functionality. Kernel contributors have called for the inclusion of a patch that would technologically prevent the use of proprietary kernel modules at the close of a 12-month grace period.
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Don't be bothered about this issue.
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