[Bug kprobes/4748] New: Kprobes marked EXPERIMENTAL

[Bug kprobes/4748] New: Kprobes marked EXPERIMENTAL

[jkenisto at us dot ibm dot com]

If you run make menuconfig (or a sibling thereof), you'll see that kprobes is
labeled "EXPERIMENTAL".  Kprobes has been in Linus's kernel since 2004, so this
label is rather cautious.  One explanation is that KPROBES is in the
Instrumentation submenu, which itself depends on EXPERIMENTAL.  But does that
mean we have to explicitly mention it in the 'bool "Kprobes..."' line in
arch/*/Kconfig?

Here's a related discussion on LKML:
http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0707.0/0069.html

-- 
           Summary: Kprobes marked EXPERIMENTAL
           Product: systemtap
           Version: unspecified
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: kprobes
        AssignedTo: systemtap at sources dot redhat dot com
        ReportedBy: jkenisto at us dot ibm dot com


http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=4748

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Re: [Bug kprobes/4748] New: Kprobes marked EXPERIMENTAL

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Fri, 7 Jul 2007, jkenisto at us dot ibm dot com wrote:

> If you run make menuconfig (or a sibling thereof), you'll see that kprobes is
> labeled "EXPERIMENTAL".  Kprobes has been in Linus's kernel since 2004, so this
> label is rather cautious.  One explanation is that KPROBES is in the
> Instrumentation submenu, which itself depends on EXPERIMENTAL.  But does that
> mean we have to explicitly mention it in the 'bool "Kprobes..."' line in
> arch/*/Kconfig?
>
> Here's a related discussion on LKML:
> http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0707.0/0069.html

i'm tempted to submit a patch that removes the top-level EXPERIMENTAL
dependency from the Instrumentation menu in all those Kconfig files.
if something is truly experimental, it makes more sense that it be
tagged that way individually on a feature-by-feature basis.

want me to do that as a starting point?

rday
-- 
========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day
Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry
Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

http://fsdev.net/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
========================================================================

[Bug kprobes/4748] Kprobes marked EXPERIMENTAL

[rpjday at mindspring dot com]

------- Additional Comments From rpjday at mindspring dot com  2007-07-07 11:38 -------
Subject: Re:  New: Kprobes marked EXPERIMENTAL

On Fri, 7 Jul 2007, jkenisto at us dot ibm dot com wrote:

> If you run make menuconfig (or a sibling thereof), you'll see that kprobes is
> labeled "EXPERIMENTAL".  Kprobes has been in Linus's kernel since 2004, so this
> label is rather cautious.  One explanation is that KPROBES is in the
> Instrumentation submenu, which itself depends on EXPERIMENTAL.  But does that
> mean we have to explicitly mention it in the 'bool "Kprobes..."' line in
> arch/*/Kconfig?
>
> Here's a related discussion on LKML:
> http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0707.0/0069.html

i'm tempted to submit a patch that removes the top-level EXPERIMENTAL
dependency from the Instrumentation menu in all those Kconfig files.
if something is truly experimental, it makes more sense that it be
tagged that way individually on a feature-by-feature basis.

want me to do that as a starting point?

rday


-- 


http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=4748

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Re: [Bug kprobes/4748] Kprobes marked EXPERIMENTAL

[Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli]

> i'm tempted to submit a patch that removes the top-level EXPERIMENTAL
> dependency from the Instrumentation menu in all those Kconfig files.
> if something is truly experimental, it makes more sense that it be
> tagged that way individually on a feature-by-feature basis.
> 
> want me to do that as a starting point?

I agree that the tag needs to be granular. On the kprobes front, we need
to take a call on an arch basis. I'd say, based on testing over the past
couple of years, the EXPERIMENTAL tag can be removed from i386, x86_64,
powerpc and IA64.

Arch maintainers of sparc64, avr32 and s390 need to take a similar call.

Ananth

[Bug kprobes/4748] Kprobes marked EXPERIMENTAL

[ananth at in dot ibm dot com]

------- Additional Comments From ananth at in dot ibm dot com  2007-07-09 04:47 -------
Subject: Re:  Kprobes marked EXPERIMENTAL

> i'm tempted to submit a patch that removes the top-level EXPERIMENTAL
> dependency from the Instrumentation menu in all those Kconfig files.
> if something is truly experimental, it makes more sense that it be
> tagged that way individually on a feature-by-feature basis.
> 
> want me to do that as a starting point?

I agree that the tag needs to be granular. On the kprobes front, we need
to take a call on an arch basis. I'd say, based on testing over the past
couple of years, the EXPERIMENTAL tag can be removed from i386, x86_64,
powerpc and IA64.

Arch maintainers of sparc64, avr32 and s390 need to take a similar call.

Ananth


-- 


http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=4748

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[Bug kprobes/4748] Kprobes marked EXPERIMENTAL

[jkenisto at us dot ibm dot com]

------- Additional Comments From jkenisto at us dot ibm dot com  2007-07-09 17:26 -------
rday has submitted the patch proposed in Comment #1:
http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0707.1/0286.html
Thanks!

I agree with Ananth's assessment in Comment #2.  Ananth, assigning this PR to
you.  I suggest you, as prominent kprobes maintainer, are the best one to post a
patch removing the EXPERIMENTAL label from kprobes on the indicated architectures.

-- 
           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |rpjday at mindspring dot com
         AssignedTo|systemtap at sources dot    |ananth at in dot ibm dot com
                   |redhat dot com              |
             Status|NEW                         |ASSIGNED


http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=4748

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