HEADS UP (preliminary): KBI breakage is about to happen

[gnn at freebsd.org]

At Sun, 27 May 2007 15:51:29 +0400,
Yar Tikhiy wrote:
> 
> As discussed earlier on -net, I'd like to commit the following
> patch.  It will bring ether_ioctl() into accord with ioctl() WRT
> the type of the command argument.  In our ioctl(), command became
> an u_long ages ago, but ether_ioctl() has never been fixed.  With
> int and u_long being of different widths on 64-bit arch'es, the
> discrepancy can get us in trouble sooner or later.
> 
> In fact, ioctl command coding is very unlikely to change, so it
> will continue to fit in 32 bits.  OTOH, the C compiler should be
> uneasy about squeezing u_long into int when ether_ioctl() is called
> from an if_ioctl handler, so this patch will be a little step on
> the way to a warning-free kernel.
> 
> This change will inevitably break the kernel interface to network
> modules, so all of them will need rebuilding.
> 
> Any objections?
> 

Better now than in a few weeks when we branch CURRENT to 7.

Best,
George