Normally the FreeBSD Project tries very hard to avoid ABI breakage in
"Stable Branches". However occasionally the fix for a bug can not be
implemented without ABI breakage, and it is decided that the fix
warrants the impact of the ABI breakage. We have one of those
situations coming along for RELENG_7 (what will become FreeBSD 7.1).
The ABI breakage should only impact kernel modules that are not part of
the baseline system (those will be patched by the MFC) which deal with
advisory locks. As such the impact should not cause many people
problems.
The work that will be MFCed fixes issues with filesystem advisory locks,
and moves the advisory locks list from filesystem-private data
structures into the vnode structure.
The MFC will be done by Kostantin Belousov some time this coming Friday
(August 1st, 2008) if you have concerns and want to watch for it.
Thanks.
--
Ken Smith
- From there to here, from here to | kensmith@cse.buffalo.edu
there, funny things are everywhere. |
- Theodore Geisel |
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On Tuesday 29 July 2008 08:45:45 Ken Smith wrote:> Normally the FreeBSD Project tries very hard to avoid ABI breakage in > "Stable Branches". However occasionally the fix for a bug can not be > implemented without ABI breakage, and it is decided that the fix > warrants the impact of the ABI breakage. We have one of those > situations coming along for RELENG_7 (what will become FreeBSD 7.1). > The ABI breakage should only impact kernel modules that are not part of > the baseline system (those will be patched by the MFC) which deal with > advisory locks. As such the impact should not cause many people > problems. > > The work that will be MFCed fixes issues with filesystem advisory locks, > and moves the advisory locks list from filesystem-private data > structures into the vnode structure. > > The MFC will be done by Kostantin Belousov some time this coming Friday > (August 1st, 2008) if you have concerns and want to watch for it. > > Thanks.Sometimes information gets posted to this list on the assumption that everyone understand what the writer means. This is one of those occasions!! For those of us who are not as well informed and experienced as others could someone please explain what is meant by an ABI breakage, its implications and how to deal with them. Thanks David
On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:47:34 +0200, David Southwell <david@vizion2000.net> wrote:> On Tuesday 29 July 2008 08:45:45 Ken Smith wrote: >> Normally the FreeBSD Project tries very hard to avoid ABI breakage in >> "Stable Branches". However occasionally the fix for a bug can not be >> implemented without ABI breakage, and it is decided that the fix >> warrants the impact of the ABI breakage. We have one of those >> situations coming along for RELENG_7 (what will become FreeBSD 7.1). >> The ABI breakage should only impact kernel modules that are not part of >> the baseline system (those will be patched by the MFC) which deal with >> advisory locks. As such the impact should not cause many people >> problems. >> >> The work that will be MFCed fixes issues with filesystem advisory locks, >> and moves the advisory locks list from filesystem-private data >> structures into the vnode structure. >> >> The MFC will be done by Kostantin Belousov some time this coming Friday >> (August 1st, 2008) if you have concerns and want to watch for it. >> >> Thanks. > Sometimes information gets posted to this list on the assumption that > everyone > understand what the writer means. > > This is one of those occasions!! > > For those of us who are not as well informed and experienced as others > could > someone please explain what is meant by an ABI breakage, its > implications > and how to deal with them. > > Thanks > > DavidGoogling for ABI gives me this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_binary_interface That is part of what you want to know. Ronald.
On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 02:47:34AM -0700, David Southwell wrote:> On Tuesday 29 July 2008 08:45:45 Ken Smith wrote: > > Normally the FreeBSD Project tries very hard to avoid ABI breakage in > > "Stable Branches". However occasionally the fix for a bug can not be > > implemented without ABI breakage, and it is decided that the fix > > warrants the impact of the ABI breakage. We have one of those > > situations coming along for RELENG_7 (what will become FreeBSD 7.1). > > The ABI breakage should only impact kernel modules that are not part of > > the baseline system (those will be patched by the MFC) which deal with > > advisory locks. As such the impact should not cause many people > > problems. > > > > The work that will be MFCed fixes issues with filesystem advisory locks, > > and moves the advisory locks list from filesystem-private data > > structures into the vnode structure. > > > > The MFC will be done by Kostantin Belousov some time this coming Friday > > (August 1st, 2008) if you have concerns and want to watch for it. > > > > Thanks. > Sometimes information gets posted to this list on the assumption that everyone > understand what the writer means. > > This is one of those occasions!! > > For those of us who are not as well informed and experienced as others could > someone please explain what is meant by an ABI breakage, its implications > and how to deal with them.The small glitch in the announcement is use of the ABI == Application Binary Interface term, that is better be replaced by KBI == Kernel Binary Interface. No usermode breakage is expected to result from MFC. The only consequence is the need to adopt some out-of-tree filesystems, not that I am aware of any ATM. If you are the author or maintainer of such module, then you need to watch this out. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 195 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/attachments/20080730/96cb3def/attachment.pgp
On Wednesday 30 July 2008 07:27:27 Ian FREISLICH wrote:> David Southwell wrote: > > On Tuesday 29 July 2008 08:45:45 Ken Smith wrote: > > > Normally the FreeBSD Project tries very hard to avoid ABI breakage in > > > "Stable Branches". However occasionally the fix for a bug can not be > > > > Sometimes information gets posted to this list on the assumption that > > everyone understand what the writer means. > > > > This is one of those occasions!! > > > > For those of us who are not as well informed and experienced as others > > could someone please explain what is meant by an ABI breakage, its > > implications and how to deal with them. > > Within a major release, the project tries very hard to maintain > Binary Interface campatibility, or stability. In fact as far as I > know, this is where the name "Stable Branch" originates. > > What this means is that a binary compiled on 7.0-RELEASE should > continue to work without needing to be recompiled over the lifetime > of the 7 branch. > > ABI breakage that Ken refers to here means that a change required > to fix a bug cannot be made while maintaining binary compatibility > with previous versions. Any program that makes use of (I'm guessing) > fcntl(2) or flock(2) that runs on 7.0, will not run on >= 7.1 without > being recompiled. > > Ian > > -- > Ian FreislichThanks that is very concise and very helpful. Question is what is the best way to determine which programs (if any) depend upon fcntl or flock on a running system? David
David Southwell wrote:> On Tuesday 29 July 2008 08:45:45 Ken Smith wrote: > > Normally the FreeBSD Project tries very hard to avoid ABI breakage in > > "Stable Branches". However occasionally the fix for a bug can not be > > Sometimes information gets posted to this list on the assumption that > everyone understand what the writer means. > > This is one of those occasions!! > > For those of us who are not as well informed and experienced as others > could someone please explain what is meant by an ABI breakage, its > implications and how to deal with them.Within a major release, the project tries very hard to maintain Binary Interface campatibility, or stability. In fact as far as I know, this is where the name "Stable Branch" originates. What this means is that a binary compiled on 7.0-RELEASE should continue to work without needing to be recompiled over the lifetime of the 7 branch. ABI breakage that Ken refers to here means that a change required to fix a bug cannot be made while maintaining binary compatibility with previous versions. Any program that makes use of (I'm guessing) fcntl(2) or flock(2) that runs on 7.0, will not run on >= 7.1 without being recompiled. Ian -- Ian Freislich
* Ken Smith <kensmith@cse.Buffalo.EDU> [080729 08:47] wrote:> > Normally the FreeBSD Project tries very hard to avoid ABI breakage in > "Stable Branches". However occasionally the fix for a bug can not be > implemented without ABI breakage, and it is decided that the fix > warrants the impact of the ABI breakage. We have one of those > situations coming along for RELENG_7 (what will become FreeBSD 7.1). > The ABI breakage should only impact kernel modules that are not part of > the baseline system (those will be patched by the MFC) which deal with > advisory locks. As such the impact should not cause many people > problems. > > The work that will be MFCed fixes issues with filesystem advisory locks, > and moves the advisory locks list from filesystem-private data > structures into the vnode structure. > > The MFC will be done by Kostantin Belousov some time this coming Friday > (August 1st, 2008) if you have concerns and want to watch for it.Ken, Can you point at a cvs/svn log or two that details the change and why? Everyone else: For those confused about what ABI breakage means: It means that you'll need to recompile your kernel modules and potentially your system utilities that access kernel data structures to display statistics. It seems like in this particular case you won't need to recompile, but it's a good idea just to be safe to recompile kernel, world and any third party kernel modules you have. thank you, -Alfred
On Fri, Aug 01, 2008 at 05:44:17AM -0700, Alfred Perlstein wrote:> * Ken Smith <kensmith@cse.Buffalo.EDU> [080729 08:47] wrote: > > > > Normally the FreeBSD Project tries very hard to avoid ABI breakage in > > "Stable Branches". However occasionally the fix for a bug can not be > > implemented without ABI breakage, and it is decided that the fix > > warrants the impact of the ABI breakage. We have one of those > > situations coming along for RELENG_7 (what will become FreeBSD 7.1). > > The ABI breakage should only impact kernel modules that are not part of > > the baseline system (those will be patched by the MFC) which deal with > > advisory locks. As such the impact should not cause many people > > problems. > > > > The work that will be MFCed fixes issues with filesystem advisory locks, > > and moves the advisory locks list from filesystem-private data > > structures into the vnode structure. > > > > The MFC will be done by Kostantin Belousov some time this coming Friday > > (August 1st, 2008) if you have concerns and want to watch for it. > > Ken, > > Can you point at a cvs/svn log or two that details the change and > why?MFCed as r181119. See the log for all details. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 195 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/attachments/20080801/05e219c6/attachment.pgp
On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 10:45 AM, Ken Smith <kensmith@cse.buffalo.edu> wrote:> > Normally the FreeBSD Project tries very hard to avoid ABI breakage in > "Stable Branches". However occasionally the fix for a bug can not be > implemented without ABI breakage, and it is decided that the fix > warrants the impact of the ABI breakage. We have one of those > situations coming along for RELENG_7 (what will become FreeBSD 7.1). > The ABI breakage should only impact kernel modules that are not part of > the baseline system (those will be patched by the MFC) which deal with > advisory locks. As such the impact should not cause many people > problems. > > The work that will be MFCed fixes issues with filesystem advisory locks, > and moves the advisory locks list from filesystem-private data > structures into the vnode structure. > > The MFC will be done by Kostantin Belousov some time this coming Friday > (August 1st, 2008) if you have concerns and want to watch for it. >Just updated to 7-STABLE last night and found that Truecrypt (which uses a combination of fuse and mdconfig to mount its encrypted volumes) is now completely unable to mount its encrypted volumes. I've rebuilt fusefs-kmod and fusefs-libs as well as Truecrypt to no avail. As Truecrypt is implementing an encrypted file system, I am assuming at this point that the kernel ABI breakage may be what is causing this new problem. Are the any calls in particular that I should be looking for in the Truecrypt code to see where it might be choking on the new kernel ABI? I've briefly reviewed some of the changes in r181119 but lack the experience to discern anything useful from them. I'd like to file an issue with the Truecrypt devs if I can get an idea of where the breakage might be. Thanks, Matt> Thanks. > > -- > Ken Smith > - From there to here, from here to | kensmith@cse.buffalo.edu > there, funny things are everywhere. | > - Theodore Geisel | > >