Re: [PATCH 01/24] XSM: reduce redundancy in hook machinery

Jan Beulich <[email protected]> Fri, 31 Jul 2026 10:03:51 +0200
Newsgroups org.xenproject.lists.xen-devel
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On 30.07.2026 20:21, Daniel P. Smith wrote:
> On 7/30/26 11:18 AM, Jan Beulich wrote:
>> On 30.07.2026 17:05, Daniel P. Smith wrote:
>>> On 7/28/26 9:13 AM, Jan Beulich wrote:
>>>> Hooks not taking xsm_default_t as first argument could of course be
>>>> adjusted to take one, at which point they could be covered here as well.
>>>> Question is why there is this difference in the first place.
>>>
>>> I have a theory but I am not confident to write it down. I can see if I
>>> can confirm with DDG if you really care that much to know the why.
>>> Personally having a consistent hook interface convention would provide a
>>> simpler pattern for people to follow if they are having to introdcue a
>>> new hook.
>>
>> Well, I don't really need to know the reason. If you agree that making
>> things uniform is a good move, I can simply stick a few more patches at
>> the end of this series.
> 
> Correct me if I am wrong, but we would be introducing an unused 
> parameter in exchange for uniform interfaces that can be generated with 
> machinery reducing hook maintenance overhead. IMHO I feel from a 
> security standpoint this would be a win. Would you disagree?

Definitely not. What I'm unsure is whether I'd call this a security related
win. To me it's more a win in maintainability in general. Which of course
(typically) also helps security of the resulting code.

Jan