Immediate problem fixed by the new KPI is the long-standing race
between device creation and assignments to cdev->si_drv1 and
cdev->si_drv2, which allows the window where cdevsw methods might be
called with si_drv1,2 fields not yet set. Devices typically checked
for NULL and returned spurious errors to usermode, and often left some
methods unchecked.
The new function interface is designed to be extensible, which should
allow to add more features to make_dev_s(9) without inventing yet
another name for function to create devices, while maintaining KPI and
even KBI backward-compatibility.
Reviewed by: hps, jhb
Sponsored by: The FreeBSD Foundation
MFC after: 3 weeks
Differential revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D4746
48ce5d4cac