From: David Laight

Sent: 12 April 2021 10:37

...

I'm guessing that compat_pid_t is 16 bits?
So the native 32bit version has an unnamed 2 byte structure pad.
The 'packed' removes this pad from the compat structure.

AFAICT (apart from mips) the __ARCH_COMPAT_FLOCK_PAD is just
adding an explicit pad for the implicit pad the compiler
would generate because compat_pid_t is 16 bits.

I've just looked at the header.
compat_pid_t is 32 bits.
So Linux must have gained 32bit pids at some earlier time.
(Historically Unix pids were 16 bit - even on 32bit systems.)

Which makes the explicit pad in 'sparc' rather 'interesting'.

Actually the tail pad can just be removed from the compat
structures.
Just a comment that mips and sparc have extra fields
in the uapi header is enough.

The kernel never needs to read/write the pad.
userspace must provide the pad in case the kernel writes it.

oh - compat_loff_t is only used in a couple of other places.
neither care in any way about the alignment.
(Provided get_user() doesn't fault on a 8n+4 aligned address.)

	David

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