On a debugging and testing note... Has anybody tried building up sets of test data for the ioctl calls that are designed to crash the kernel? For example, random ioctls on the character device, ones with invalid pointers, ones with strangely inconsistent data, etc... Perhaps I'm being a bit too picky, but it seems to me there should be as few ways as possible for a user space program (even one run by root) to crash the kernel. The LVM deice is especially this way since whenever you're using it you're trying to perform some system maintenance task with the express desire of not shutting down. And, since you're performing a system maintenance task, the system is likely to be in an interesting state that may make it difficult to recover from a crash. Anyway, I didn't know if anybody had done this or not, so I thought I'd ask. Have fun (if at all possible), -- The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed. -- Alexander Hamilton -- Eric Hopper (hopper omnifarious mn org http://www.omnifarious.org/~hopper) --
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