Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2017 03:12:57 +0100 From: Andrew Turner <andrew@fubar.geek.nz> To: Colin Percival <cperciva@tarsnap.com> Cc: "freebsd-current@freebsd.org" <freebsd-current@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: RFC: Removing hpt* drivers from GENERIC Message-ID: <15E3ADE8-A648-4408-AFCC-EA904CBEA4F5@fubar.geek.nz> In-Reply-To: <0100015f557d9cd2-098d2e99-d4c4-45ce-90bf-47b76455a6de-000000@email.amazonses.com> References: <0100015f557d9cd2-098d2e99-d4c4-45ce-90bf-47b76455a6de-000000@email.amazonses.com>
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> On 25 Oct 2017, at 22:43, Colin Percival <cperciva@tarsnap.com> wrote: >=20 > Hi developers, >=20 > I'd like to remove the hpt* drivers from GENERIC. These are the = drivers > for the HighPoint storage hardware -- SATA (hptnr) and RAID (hpt27xx, = hptiop, > hptmv, hptrr). >=20 > My reason for wanting to remove them is that the hpt27xx and hptnr = drivers > spend ~150 ms in their DEVICE_PROBE routines every time the system = boots. > Since they are roughly 1000x slower than the median driver, this is = clearly > excessive; unfortunately the time is being spent inside a binary blob, = so > there is no apparent way to fix the drivers. (The other three drives = from > the same vendor -- hptiop, hptmv, and hptrr -- don't exhibit this = particular > bug, but I don't see any strong argument in favour of not removing = them along > with the two problem drivers.) >=20 > All of these are available via kernel modules, so the impact upon = users > should be minimal. Obviously I would not plan on MFCing this change. >=20 > Any objections? Why are we building these binary blobs into the kernel? We don=E2=80=99t = have the source for these so it=E2=80=99s more difficult to audit them = for security issues. If the user wishes to load them as modules they are = fine to do that, however I don=E2=80=99t think we shouldn=E2=80=99t be = linking any of these blobs in a GENERIC kernel. Andrew
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