On Wednesday, 24 January 2024 06:32:13 CST Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:

On Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 09:43:09PM -0600, Elizabeth Figura wrote:

quoted

quoted

Why do you need a fixed minor number?  Can't your userspace handle
dynamic numbers?  What systems require a static value?

I believe I added this because it's necessary for MODULE_ALIAS (and, more 
broadly, because I was following the example of vaguely comparable devices 
like /dev/loop-control). I suppose I could instead just remove MODULE_ALIAS 
(or even remove the ability to compile ntsync as a module entirely).

Do you really need MODULE_ALIAS()?  Having it for char devices to be
auto-loaded is not generally considered a good idea anymore as systems
should have the module loaded before userspace goes and asks for it.

It also reduces suprises when any random userspace program can cause
kernel modules to be loaded for no real reason.

I think there's no reason we can't make loading the system's problem. I'll remove it in v2.