• Davide Libenzi's avatar
    make timerfd return a u64 and fix the __put_user · 32b49ec2
    Davide Libenzi authored
    Davi fixed a missing cast in the __put_user(), that was making timerfd
    return a single byte instead of the full value.
    
    Talking with Michael about the timerfd man page, we think it'd be better to
    use a u64 for the returned value, to align it with the eventfd
    implementation.
    
    This is an ABI change.  The timerfd code is new in 2.6.22 and if we merge this
    into 2.6.23 then we should also merge it into 2.6.22.x.  That will leave a few
    early 2.6.22 kernels out in the wild which might misbehave when a future
    timerfd-enabled glibc is run on them.
    
    mtk says:
    	The difference would be that read() will only return 4 bytes,
    	while the application will expect 8.  If the application is
    	checking the size of returned value, as it should, then it will
    	be able to detect the problem (it could even be sophisticated
    	enough to know that if this is a 4-byte return, then it is
    	running on an old 2.6.22 kernel).  If the application is not
    	checking the return from read(), then its 8-byte buffer will not
    	be filled -- the contents of the last 4 bytes will be undefined,
    	so the u64 value as a whole will be junk.
    
    	When I wrote up that description above, I forgot a crucial
    	detail.  The above description described the difference between
    	the new behavior implemented by the patch, and the current
    	(i.e., 2.6.22) *intended* behavior.  However, as I originally
    	remarked to Davide, the 2.6.22 read() behavior is broken: it
    	should return 4 bytes on a read(), but as originally
    	implemented, only the least significant byte contained valid
    	information.  (In other words, the top 3 bytes of overrun
    	information were simply being discarded.)
    
    	So the patch both fixes a bug in the originally intended
    	behavior, and changes the intended behavior (to return 8 bytes
    	from a read() instead of 4).
    Signed-off-by: default avatarDavide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
    Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk-manpages@gmx.net>
    Cc: Davi Arnaut <davi@haxent.com.br>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarGreg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
    32b49ec2
timerfd.c 5.05 KB