Commit c18f6365 authored by Greg Kroah-Hartman's avatar Greg Kroah-Hartman

[PATCH] Add kernel<->userspace ABI stability documentation

Signed-off-by: default avatarKay Sievers <kay.sievers@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: default avatarGreg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
parent 183bd5b3
This directory attempts to document the ABI between the Linux kernel and
userspace, and the relative stability of these interfaces. Due to the
everchanging nature of Linux, and the differing maturity levels, these
interfaces should be used by userspace programs in different ways.
We have four different levels of ABI stability, as shown by the four
different subdirectories in this location. Interfaces may change levels
of stability according to the rules described below.
The different levels of stability are:
stable/
This directory documents the interfaces that the developer has
defined to be stable. Userspace programs are free to use these
interfaces with no restrictions, and backward compatibility for
them will be guaranteed for at least 2 years. Most interfaces
(like syscalls) are expected to never change and always be
available.
testing/
This directory documents interfaces that are felt to be stable,
as the main development of this interface has been completed.
The interface can be changed to add new features, but the
current interface will not break by doing this, unless grave
errors or security problems are found in them. Userspace
programs can start to rely on these interfaces, but they must be
aware of changes that can occur before these interfaces move to
be marked stable. Programs that use these interfaces are
strongly encouraged to add their name to the description of
these interfaces, so that the kernel developers can easily
notify them if any changes occur (see the description of the
layout of the files below for details on how to do this.)
obsolete/
This directory documents interfaces that are still remaining in
the kernel, but are marked to be removed at some later point in
time. The description of the interface will document the reason
why it is obsolete and when it can be expected to be removed.
The file Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt may describe
some of these interfaces, giving a schedule for when they will
be removed.
removed/
This directory contains a list of the old interfaces that have
been removed from the kernel.
Every file in these directories will contain the following information:
What: Short description of the interface
Date: Date created
KernelVersion: Kernel version this feature first showed up in.
Contact: Primary contact for this interface (may be a mailing list)
Description: Long description of the interface and how to use it.
Users: All users of this interface who wish to be notified when
it changes. This is very important for interfaces in
the "testing" stage, so that kernel developers can work
with userspace developers to ensure that things do not
break in ways that are unacceptable. It is also
important to get feedback for these interfaces to make
sure they are working in a proper way and do not need to
be changed further.
How things move between levels:
Interfaces in stable may move to obsolete, as long as the proper
notification is given.
Interfaces may be removed from obsolete and the kernel as long as the
documented amount of time has gone by.
Interfaces in the testing state can move to the stable state when the
developers feel they are finished. They cannot be removed from the
kernel tree without going through the obsolete state first.
It's up to the developer to place their interfaces in the category they
wish for it to start out in.
What: devfs
Date: July 2005
Contact: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
Description:
devfs has been unmaintained for a number of years, has unfixable
races, contains a naming policy within the kernel that is
against the LSB, and can be replaced by using udev.
The files fs/devfs/*, include/linux/devfs_fs*.h will be removed,
along with the the assorted devfs function calls throughout the
kernel tree.
Users:
What: The kernel syscall interface
Description:
This interface matches much of the POSIX interface and is based
on it and other Unix based interfaces. It will only be added to
over time, and not have things removed from it.
Note that this interface is different for every architecture
that Linux supports. Please see the architecture-specific
documentation for details on the syscall numbers that are to be
mapped to each syscall.
What: /sys/module
Description:
The /sys/module tree consists of the following structure:
/sys/module/MODULENAME
The name of the module that is in the kernel. This
module name will show up either if the module is built
directly into the kernel, or if it is loaded as a
dyanmic module.
/sys/module/MODULENAME/parameters
This directory contains individual files that are each
individual parameters of the module that are able to be
changed at runtime. See the individual module
documentation as to the contents of these parameters and
what they accomplish.
Note: The individual parameter names and values are not
considered stable, only the fact that they will be
placed in this location within sysfs. See the
individual driver documentation for details as to the
stability of the different parameters.
/sys/module/MODULENAME/refcnt
If the module is able to be unloaded from the kernel, this file
will contain the current reference count of the module.
Note: If the module is built into the kernel, or if the
CONFIG_MODULE_UNLOAD kernel configuration value is not enabled,
this file will not be present.
What: /sys/class/
Date: Febuary 2006
Contact: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
Description:
The /sys/class directory will consist of a group of
subdirectories describing individual classes of devices
in the kernel. The individual directories will consist
of either subdirectories, or symlinks to other
directories.
All programs that use this directory tree must be able
to handle both subdirectories or symlinks in order to
work properly.
Users:
udev <linux-hotplug-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>
What: /sys/devices
Date: February 2006
Contact: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
Description:
The /sys/devices tree contains a snapshot of the
internal state of the kernel device tree. Devices will
be added and removed dynamically as the machine runs,
and between different kernel versions, the layout of the
devices within this tree will change.
Please do not rely on the format of this tree because of
this. If a program wishes to find different things in
the tree, please use the /sys/class structure and rely
on the symlinks there to point to the proper location
within the /sys/devices tree of the individual devices.
Or rely on the uevent messages to notify programs of
devices being added and removed from this tree to find
the location of those devices.
Note that sometimes not all devices along the directory
chain will have emitted uevent messages, so userspace
programs must be able to handle such occurrences.
Users:
udev <linux-hotplug-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>
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