On Fri, 24 Oct 2014 12:36:44 +0100, Mick wrote:

> I understand that udev needs or used to need uevent_helper, but I am
> not clear if I should or should not enable this module in a new kernel
> I'm rolling.  Can you please advise:
> 
> 
> CONFIG_UEVENT_HELPER:
> 
> The uevent helper program is forked by the kernel for
> every uevent.
> Before the switch to the netlink-based uevent source, this was
> used to hook hotplug scripts into kernel device events. It
> usually pointed to a shell script at /sbin/hotplug.
> This should not be used today,
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

> because usual systems create
> many events at bootup or device discovery in a very short time
> frame. One forked process per event can create so many processes
> that it creates a high system load, or on smaller systems
> it is known to create out-of-memory situations during bootup.

It's a legacy setting, introduced so you can turn off this feature.
Presumably it defaults to Y for compatibility but I've been following the
advice and running without it for some time now - on desktops and servers.

-- 
Neil Bothwick

WinErr 004: Erroneous error - Nothing is wrong