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Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements

From "Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@rjwysocki.net>
Newsgroups linux.kernel
Subject Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements
Date 2017-04-15 01:00 +0200
Message-ID <twim6-71X-9@gated-at.bofh.it> (permalink)
References <tvzyF-2Mb-1@gated-at.bofh.it>
Organization linux.* mail to news gateway

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On Wednesday, April 12, 2017 04:08:54 PM Darren Hart wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> There are a few parallel efforts involving the Windows Management
> Instrumentation (WMI)[1] and dependent/related drivers. I'd like to have a round of
> discussion among those of you that have been involved in this space before we
> decide on a direction.
> 
> The WMI support in the kernel today fairly narrowly supports a handful of
> systems. Andy L. has a work-in-progress series [2] which converts wmi into a
> platform device and a proper bus, providing devices for dependent drivers to
> bind to, and a mechanism for sibling devices to communicate with each other.
> I've reviewed the series and feel like the approach is sound, I plan to carry
> this series forward and merge it (with Andy L's permission).
> 
> Are there any objections to this?
> 
> In Windows, applications interact with WMI more or less directly. We don't do
> this in Linux currently, although it has been discussed in the past [3]. Some
> vendors will work around this by performing SMI/SMM, which is inefficient at
> best. Exposing WMI methods to userspace would bring parity to WMI for Linux and
> Windows.
> 
> There are two principal concerns I'd appreciate your thoughts on:
> 
> a) As an undiscoverable interface (you need to know the method signatures ahead
> of time), universally exposing every WMI "device" to userspace seems like "a bad
> idea" from a security and stability perspective. While access would certainly be
> privileged, it seems more prudent to make this exposure opt-in. We also handle
> some of this with kernel drivers and exposing those "devices" to userspace would
> enable userspace and the kernel to fight over control. So - if we expose WMI
> devices to userspace, I believe this should be done on a case by case basis,
> opting in, and not by default as part of the WMI driver (although it can provide
> the mechanism for a sub-driver to use), and possibly a devmode to do so by
> default.

A couple of loose thoughts here.

In principle there could be a "generic default WMI driver" or similar that would
"claim" all WMI "devices" that have not been "claimed" by anyone else and would
simply expose them to user space somehow (e.g. using a chardev interface).

Then, depending on how that thing is implemented, opt-in etc should be possible
too.

Thanks,
Rafael

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Thread

RFC: WMI Enhancements Darren Hart <dvhart@infradead.org> - 2017-04-13 01:10 +0200
  Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Pali Rohár <pali.rohar@gmail.com> - 2017-04-13 09:40 +0200
    Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Darren Hart <dvhart@infradead.org> - 2017-04-13 19:00 +0200
      RE: RFC: WMI Enhancements <Mario.Limonciello@dell.com> - 2017-04-13 22:40 +0200
        Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Darren Hart <dvhart@infradead.org> - 2017-04-14 02:00 +0200
          RE: RFC: WMI Enhancements <Mario.Limonciello@dell.com> - 2017-04-14 19:50 +0200
            Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Darren Hart <dvhart@infradead.org> - 2017-04-14 20:30 +0200
              RE: RFC: WMI Enhancements <Mario.Limonciello@dell.com> - 2017-04-14 21:10 +0200
  Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Michał Kępień <kernel@kempniu.pl> - 2017-04-13 09:40 +0200
    RE: RFC: WMI Enhancements <Mario.Limonciello@dell.com> - 2017-04-13 15:50 +0200
      Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Pali Rohár <pali.rohar@gmail.com> - 2017-04-13 16:00 +0200
        Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org> - 2017-04-13 17:40 +0200
          RE: RFC: WMI Enhancements <Mario.Limonciello@dell.com> - 2017-04-13 18:00 +0200
            Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Darren Hart <dvhart@infradead.org> - 2017-04-13 18:10 +0200
        RE: RFC: WMI Enhancements <Mario.Limonciello@dell.com> - 2017-04-13 17:50 +0200
          Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Andy Shevchenko <andriy.shevchenko@linux.intel.com> - 2017-04-18 12:00 +0200
            RE: RFC: WMI Enhancements <Mario.Limonciello@dell.com> - 2017-04-18 16:10 +0200
    Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org> - 2017-04-13 17:40 +0200
      Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org> - 2017-04-13 17:50 +0200
        Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Darren Hart <dvhart@infradead.org> - 2017-04-13 18:20 +0200
      Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Pali Rohár <pali.rohar@gmail.com> - 2017-04-13 17:50 +0200
      Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org> - 2017-04-13 18:00 +0200
        RE: RFC: WMI Enhancements <Mario.Limonciello@dell.com> - 2017-04-13 19:00 +0200
          Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Darren Hart <dvhart@infradead.org> - 2017-04-13 19:10 +0200
            Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org> - 2017-04-13 19:50 +0200
              RE: RFC: WMI Enhancements <Mario.Limonciello@dell.com> - 2017-04-13 20:00 +0200
            RE: RFC: WMI Enhancements <Mario.Limonciello@dell.com> - 2017-04-13 19:50 +0200
              Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Pali Rohár <pali.rohar@gmail.com> - 2017-04-18 10:00 +0200
                Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Darren Hart <dvhart@infradead.org> - 2017-04-18 19:00 +0200
                Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Pali Rohár <pali.rohar@gmail.com> - 2017-04-18 21:30 +0200
      RE: RFC: WMI Enhancements <Mario.Limonciello@dell.com> - 2017-04-13 18:00 +0200
        Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Darren Hart <dvhart@infradead.org> - 2017-04-13 19:10 +0200
          Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org> - 2017-04-13 19:40 +0200
            RE: RFC: WMI Enhancements <Mario.Limonciello@dell.com> - 2017-04-13 19:50 +0200
      Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Darren Hart <dvhart@infradead.org> - 2017-04-13 18:10 +0200
  Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements "Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@rjwysocki.net> - 2017-04-15 01:00 +0200
    Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Darren Hart <dvhart@infradead.org> - 2017-04-15 01:10 +0200
      Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net> - 2017-04-18 00:10 +0200
        Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Darren Hart <dvhart@infradead.org> - 2017-04-18 01:20 +0200
          Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements "Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@rjwysocki.net> - 2017-04-18 15:20 +0200
            Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Darren Hart <dvhart@infradead.org> - 2017-04-18 18:40 +0200
              Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Pali Rohár <pali.rohar@gmail.com> - 2017-04-18 21:30 +0200
                Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Darren Hart <dvhart@infradead.org> - 2017-04-19 00:50 +0200
                Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Pali Rohár <pali.rohar@gmail.com> - 2017-04-19 10:00 +0200
                RE: RFC: WMI Enhancements <Mario.Limonciello@dell.com> - 2017-04-19 18:40 +0200
                Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Pali Rohár <pali.rohar@gmail.com> - 2017-04-19 19:00 +0200
                RE: RFC: WMI Enhancements <Mario.Limonciello@dell.com> - 2017-04-19 19:30 +0200
                Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Pali Rohár <pali.rohar@gmail.com> - 2017-04-20 15:20 +0200
                Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Darren Hart <dvhart@infradead.org> - 2017-04-20 22:50 +0200
                Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org> - 2017-04-20 16:20 +0200
              Re: RFC: WMI Enhancements "Rafael J. Wysocki" <rafael@kernel.org> - 2017-04-18 23:20 +0200

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