Re: [PATCH wireless-next v2] wifi: cfg80211: fix regulatory.db async firmware request blocking __usermodehelper_disable()

On 7/22/2026 3:35 AM, Johannes Berg wrote:
> On Mon, 2026-07-20 at 10:26 +0530, Kavita Kavita wrote:
>> Gentle Reminder!!
> 
> How many exclamation marks make it non-gentle ;-)
> 
> I really cannot convince myself that this patch makes sense any sense at
> all. If there's a problem between request_firmware() and
> __usermodehelper_disable(), why would we fix it in *wireless*??



Both request_firmware() and __usermodehelper_disable() are behaving correctly.
The delay occurs because the userspace firmware-loading path waits for "regulatory.db",
which is not present on the system. While making "regulatory.db" available would avoid
the delay, we believe the underlying issue is that it is being loaded unconditionally
even when it is not required.


For self-managed drivers, regulatory information comes directly from the driver/firmware,
so there is no need to load "regulatory.db" at all. To avoid this unnecessary dependency
and overhead, we moved the loading logic into "wiphy_regulatory_register()", where the
driver type is known and "regulatory.db" loading can be skipped entirely for self-managed
drivers.



> 
> johannes