On 19/12/2025 08.48, Florian Westphal wrote: > Daniel Gomez <[email protected]> wrote: >> From: Daniel Gomez <[email protected]> >> >> The -EEXIST error code is reserved by the module loading infrastructure >> to indicate that a module is already loaded. When a module's init >> function returns -EEXIST, userspace tools like kmod interpret this as >> "module already loaded" and treat the operation as successful, returning >> 0 to the user even though the module initialization actually failed. >> >> This follows the precedent set by commit 54416fd76770 ("netfilter: >> conntrack: helper: Replace -EEXIST by -EBUSY") which fixed the same >> issue in nf_conntrack_helper_register(). >> >> Affected modules: >> * ebtable_broute ebtable_filter ebtable_nat arptable_filter >> * ip6table_filter ip6table_mangle ip6table_nat ip6table_raw >> * ip6table_security iptable_filter iptable_mangle iptable_nat >> * iptable_raw iptable_security > > But this is very different from what 54416fd76770 fixes. > > Before 54416fd76770. userspace can make a configuration entry that > prevents and unrelated module from getting loaded but at the same time > it doesn't provide any error to userspace. > > All these -EEXIST should not be possible unless the module is > already loaded.
I see. > I'll apply this patch but its not related to 54416fd76770 afaics. Thanks. Then, what about removing that paragraph that mentions the commit and add something like: Replace -EEXIST with -EBUSY to ensure correct error reporting in the module initialization path.
