<feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom'>
<title>linux-stable.git/include/linux/fs.h, branch v3.2-rc2</title>
<subtitle>Linux kernel stable tree</subtitle>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.tavy.me/linux-stable.git/'/>
<entry>
<title>Merge branch 'for-next' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/hch/vfs-queue</title>
<updated>2011-11-02T18:41:01+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Linus Torvalds</name>
<email>torvalds@linux-foundation.org</email>
</author>
<published>2011-11-02T18:41:01+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.tavy.me/linux-stable.git/commit/?id=d211858837ff8d8e31942ca7d27e6e08b3b46f5e'/>
<id>d211858837ff8d8e31942ca7d27e6e08b3b46f5e</id>
<content type='text'>
* 'for-next' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/hch/vfs-queue:
  vfs: add d_prune dentry operation
  vfs: protect i_nlink
  filesystems: add set_nlink()
  filesystems: add missing nlink wrappers
  logfs: remove unnecessary nlink setting
  ocfs2: remove unnecessary nlink setting
  jfs: remove unnecessary nlink setting
  hypfs: remove unnecessary nlink setting
  vfs: ignore error on forced remount
  readlinkat: ensure we return ENOENT for the empty pathname for normal lookups
  vfs: fix dentry leak in simple_fill_super()
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
* 'for-next' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/hch/vfs-queue:
  vfs: add d_prune dentry operation
  vfs: protect i_nlink
  filesystems: add set_nlink()
  filesystems: add missing nlink wrappers
  logfs: remove unnecessary nlink setting
  ocfs2: remove unnecessary nlink setting
  jfs: remove unnecessary nlink setting
  hypfs: remove unnecessary nlink setting
  vfs: ignore error on forced remount
  readlinkat: ensure we return ENOENT for the empty pathname for normal lookups
  vfs: fix dentry leak in simple_fill_super()
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>Merge branch 'for_linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tytso/ext4</title>
<updated>2011-11-02T17:06:20+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Linus Torvalds</name>
<email>torvalds@linux-foundation.org</email>
</author>
<published>2011-11-02T17:06:20+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.tavy.me/linux-stable.git/commit/?id=f1f8935a5c38a2c61e86a42bc971a2539eef2211'/>
<id>f1f8935a5c38a2c61e86a42bc971a2539eef2211</id>
<content type='text'>
* 'for_linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tytso/ext4: (97 commits)
  jbd2: Unify log messages in jbd2 code
  jbd/jbd2: validate sb-&gt;s_first in journal_get_superblock()
  ext4: let ext4_ext_rm_leaf work with EXT_DEBUG defined
  ext4: fix a syntax error in ext4_ext_insert_extent when debugging enabled
  ext4: fix a typo in struct ext4_allocation_context
  ext4: Don't normalize an falloc request if it can fit in 1 extent.
  ext4: remove comments about extent mount option in ext4_new_inode()
  ext4: let ext4_discard_partial_buffers handle unaligned range correctly
  ext4: return ENOMEM if find_or_create_pages fails
  ext4: move vars to local scope in ext4_discard_partial_page_buffers_no_lock()
  ext4: Create helper function for EXT4_IO_END_UNWRITTEN and i_aiodio_unwritten
  ext4: optimize locking for end_io extent conversion
  ext4: remove unnecessary call to waitqueue_active()
  ext4: Use correct locking for ext4_end_io_nolock()
  ext4: fix race in xattr block allocation path
  ext4: trace punch_hole correctly in ext4_ext_map_blocks
  ext4: clean up AGGRESSIVE_TEST code
  ext4: move variables to their scope
  ext4: fix quota accounting during migration
  ext4: migrate cleanup
  ...
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
* 'for_linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tytso/ext4: (97 commits)
  jbd2: Unify log messages in jbd2 code
  jbd/jbd2: validate sb-&gt;s_first in journal_get_superblock()
  ext4: let ext4_ext_rm_leaf work with EXT_DEBUG defined
  ext4: fix a syntax error in ext4_ext_insert_extent when debugging enabled
  ext4: fix a typo in struct ext4_allocation_context
  ext4: Don't normalize an falloc request if it can fit in 1 extent.
  ext4: remove comments about extent mount option in ext4_new_inode()
  ext4: let ext4_discard_partial_buffers handle unaligned range correctly
  ext4: return ENOMEM if find_or_create_pages fails
  ext4: move vars to local scope in ext4_discard_partial_page_buffers_no_lock()
  ext4: Create helper function for EXT4_IO_END_UNWRITTEN and i_aiodio_unwritten
  ext4: optimize locking for end_io extent conversion
  ext4: remove unnecessary call to waitqueue_active()
  ext4: Use correct locking for ext4_end_io_nolock()
  ext4: fix race in xattr block allocation path
  ext4: trace punch_hole correctly in ext4_ext_map_blocks
  ext4: clean up AGGRESSIVE_TEST code
  ext4: move variables to their scope
  ext4: fix quota accounting during migration
  ext4: migrate cleanup
  ...
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>vfs: protect i_nlink</title>
<updated>2011-11-02T11:53:43+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Miklos Szeredi</name>
<email>mszeredi@suse.cz</email>
</author>
<published>2011-10-28T12:13:30+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.tavy.me/linux-stable.git/commit/?id=a78ef704a8dd430225955f0709b22d4a6ba21deb'/>
<id>a78ef704a8dd430225955f0709b22d4a6ba21deb</id>
<content type='text'>
Prevent direct modification of i_nlink by making it const and adding a
non-const __i_nlink alias.

Signed-off-by: Miklos Szeredi &lt;mszeredi@suse.cz&gt;
Tested-by: Toshiyuki Okajima &lt;toshi.okajima@jp.fujitsu.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig &lt;hch@lst.de&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
Prevent direct modification of i_nlink by making it const and adding a
non-const __i_nlink alias.

Signed-off-by: Miklos Szeredi &lt;mszeredi@suse.cz&gt;
Tested-by: Toshiyuki Okajima &lt;toshi.okajima@jp.fujitsu.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig &lt;hch@lst.de&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>filesystems: add set_nlink()</title>
<updated>2011-11-02T11:53:43+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Miklos Szeredi</name>
<email>mszeredi@suse.cz</email>
</author>
<published>2011-10-28T12:13:29+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.tavy.me/linux-stable.git/commit/?id=bfe8684869601dacfcb2cd69ef8cfd9045f62170'/>
<id>bfe8684869601dacfcb2cd69ef8cfd9045f62170</id>
<content type='text'>
Replace remaining direct i_nlink updates with a new set_nlink()
updater function.

Signed-off-by: Miklos Szeredi &lt;mszeredi@suse.cz&gt;
Tested-by: Toshiyuki Okajima &lt;toshi.okajima@jp.fujitsu.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig &lt;hch@lst.de&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
Replace remaining direct i_nlink updates with a new set_nlink()
updater function.

Signed-off-by: Miklos Szeredi &lt;mszeredi@suse.cz&gt;
Tested-by: Toshiyuki Okajima &lt;toshi.okajima@jp.fujitsu.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig &lt;hch@lst.de&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>treewide: use __printf not __attribute__((format(printf,...)))</title>
<updated>2011-11-01T00:30:54+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Joe Perches</name>
<email>joe@perches.com</email>
</author>
<published>2011-11-01T00:11:33+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.tavy.me/linux-stable.git/commit/?id=b9075fa968a0a4347aef35e235e2995c0e57dddd'/>
<id>b9075fa968a0a4347aef35e235e2995c0e57dddd</id>
<content type='text'>
Standardize the style for compiler based printf format verification.
Standardized the location of __printf too.

Done via script and a little typing.

$ grep -rPl --include=*.[ch] -w "__attribute__" * | \
  grep -vP "^(tools|scripts|include/linux/compiler-gcc.h)" | \
  xargs perl -n -i -e 'local $/; while (&lt;&gt;) { s/\b__attribute__\s*\(\s*\(\s*format\s*\(\s*printf\s*,\s*(.+)\s*,\s*(.+)\s*\)\s*\)\s*\)/__printf($1, $2)/g ; print; }'

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: revert arch bits]
Signed-off-by: Joe Perches &lt;joe@perches.com&gt;
Cc: "Kirill A. Shutemov" &lt;kirill@shutemov.name&gt;
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton &lt;akpm@linux-foundation.org&gt;
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds &lt;torvalds@linux-foundation.org&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
Standardize the style for compiler based printf format verification.
Standardized the location of __printf too.

Done via script and a little typing.

$ grep -rPl --include=*.[ch] -w "__attribute__" * | \
  grep -vP "^(tools|scripts|include/linux/compiler-gcc.h)" | \
  xargs perl -n -i -e 'local $/; while (&lt;&gt;) { s/\b__attribute__\s*\(\s*\(\s*format\s*\(\s*printf\s*,\s*(.+)\s*,\s*(.+)\s*\)\s*\)\s*\)/__printf($1, $2)/g ; print; }'

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: revert arch bits]
Signed-off-by: Joe Perches &lt;joe@perches.com&gt;
Cc: "Kirill A. Shutemov" &lt;kirill@shutemov.name&gt;
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton &lt;akpm@linux-foundation.org&gt;
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds &lt;torvalds@linux-foundation.org&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>Cross Memory Attach</title>
<updated>2011-11-01T00:30:44+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Christopher Yeoh</name>
<email>cyeoh@au1.ibm.com</email>
</author>
<published>2011-11-01T00:06:39+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.tavy.me/linux-stable.git/commit/?id=fcf634098c00dd9cd247447368495f0b79be12d1'/>
<id>fcf634098c00dd9cd247447368495f0b79be12d1</id>
<content type='text'>
The basic idea behind cross memory attach is to allow MPI programs doing
intra-node communication to do a single copy of the message rather than a
double copy of the message via shared memory.

The following patch attempts to achieve this by allowing a destination
process, given an address and size from a source process, to copy memory
directly from the source process into its own address space via a system
call.  There is also a symmetrical ability to copy from the current
process's address space into a destination process's address space.

- Use of /proc/pid/mem has been considered, but there are issues with
  using it:
  - Does not allow for specifying iovecs for both src and dest, assuming
    preadv or pwritev was implemented either the area read from or
  written to would need to be contiguous.
  - Currently mem_read allows only processes who are currently
  ptrace'ing the target and are still able to ptrace the target to read
  from the target. This check could possibly be moved to the open call,
  but its not clear exactly what race this restriction is stopping
  (reason  appears to have been lost)
  - Having to send the fd of /proc/self/mem via SCM_RIGHTS on unix
  domain socket is a bit ugly from a userspace point of view,
  especially when you may have hundreds if not (eventually) thousands
  of processes  that all need to do this with each other
  - Doesn't allow for some future use of the interface we would like to
  consider adding in the future (see below)
  - Interestingly reading from /proc/pid/mem currently actually
  involves two copies! (But this could be fixed pretty easily)

As mentioned previously use of vmsplice instead was considered, but has
problems.  Since you need the reader and writer working co-operatively if
the pipe is not drained then you block.  Which requires some wrapping to
do non blocking on the send side or polling on the receive.  In all to all
communication it requires ordering otherwise you can deadlock.  And in the
example of many MPI tasks writing to one MPI task vmsplice serialises the
copying.

There are some cases of MPI collectives where even a single copy interface
does not get us the performance gain we could.  For example in an
MPI_Reduce rather than copy the data from the source we would like to
instead use it directly in a mathops (say the reduce is doing a sum) as
this would save us doing a copy.  We don't need to keep a copy of the data
from the source.  I haven't implemented this, but I think this interface
could in the future do all this through the use of the flags - eg could
specify the math operation and type and the kernel rather than just
copying the data would apply the specified operation between the source
and destination and store it in the destination.

Although we don't have a "second user" of the interface (though I've had
some nibbles from people who may be interested in using it for intra
process messaging which is not MPI).  This interface is something which
hardware vendors are already doing for their custom drivers to implement
fast local communication.  And so in addition to this being useful for
OpenMPI it would mean the driver maintainers don't have to fix things up
when the mm changes.

There was some discussion about how much faster a true zero copy would
go. Here's a link back to the email with some testing I did on that:

http://marc.info/?l=linux-mm&amp;m=130105930902915&amp;w=2

There is a basic man page for the proposed interface here:

http://ozlabs.org/~cyeoh/cma/process_vm_readv.txt

This has been implemented for x86 and powerpc, other architecture should
mainly (I think) just need to add syscall numbers for the process_vm_readv
and process_vm_writev. There are 32 bit compatibility versions for
64-bit kernels.

For arch maintainers there are some simple tests to be able to quickly
verify that the syscalls are working correctly here:

http://ozlabs.org/~cyeoh/cma/cma-test-20110718.tgz

Signed-off-by: Chris Yeoh &lt;yeohc@au1.ibm.com&gt;
Cc: Ingo Molnar &lt;mingo@elte.hu&gt;
Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" &lt;hpa@zytor.com&gt;
Cc: Thomas Gleixner &lt;tglx@linutronix.de&gt;
Cc: Arnd Bergmann &lt;arnd@arndb.de&gt;
Cc: Paul Mackerras &lt;paulus@samba.org&gt;
Cc: Benjamin Herrenschmidt &lt;benh@kernel.crashing.org&gt;
Cc: David Howells &lt;dhowells@redhat.com&gt;
Cc: James Morris &lt;jmorris@namei.org&gt;
Cc: &lt;linux-man@vger.kernel.org&gt;
Cc: &lt;linux-arch@vger.kernel.org&gt;
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton &lt;akpm@linux-foundation.org&gt;
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds &lt;torvalds@linux-foundation.org&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
The basic idea behind cross memory attach is to allow MPI programs doing
intra-node communication to do a single copy of the message rather than a
double copy of the message via shared memory.

The following patch attempts to achieve this by allowing a destination
process, given an address and size from a source process, to copy memory
directly from the source process into its own address space via a system
call.  There is also a symmetrical ability to copy from the current
process's address space into a destination process's address space.

- Use of /proc/pid/mem has been considered, but there are issues with
  using it:
  - Does not allow for specifying iovecs for both src and dest, assuming
    preadv or pwritev was implemented either the area read from or
  written to would need to be contiguous.
  - Currently mem_read allows only processes who are currently
  ptrace'ing the target and are still able to ptrace the target to read
  from the target. This check could possibly be moved to the open call,
  but its not clear exactly what race this restriction is stopping
  (reason  appears to have been lost)
  - Having to send the fd of /proc/self/mem via SCM_RIGHTS on unix
  domain socket is a bit ugly from a userspace point of view,
  especially when you may have hundreds if not (eventually) thousands
  of processes  that all need to do this with each other
  - Doesn't allow for some future use of the interface we would like to
  consider adding in the future (see below)
  - Interestingly reading from /proc/pid/mem currently actually
  involves two copies! (But this could be fixed pretty easily)

As mentioned previously use of vmsplice instead was considered, but has
problems.  Since you need the reader and writer working co-operatively if
the pipe is not drained then you block.  Which requires some wrapping to
do non blocking on the send side or polling on the receive.  In all to all
communication it requires ordering otherwise you can deadlock.  And in the
example of many MPI tasks writing to one MPI task vmsplice serialises the
copying.

There are some cases of MPI collectives where even a single copy interface
does not get us the performance gain we could.  For example in an
MPI_Reduce rather than copy the data from the source we would like to
instead use it directly in a mathops (say the reduce is doing a sum) as
this would save us doing a copy.  We don't need to keep a copy of the data
from the source.  I haven't implemented this, but I think this interface
could in the future do all this through the use of the flags - eg could
specify the math operation and type and the kernel rather than just
copying the data would apply the specified operation between the source
and destination and store it in the destination.

Although we don't have a "second user" of the interface (though I've had
some nibbles from people who may be interested in using it for intra
process messaging which is not MPI).  This interface is something which
hardware vendors are already doing for their custom drivers to implement
fast local communication.  And so in addition to this being useful for
OpenMPI it would mean the driver maintainers don't have to fix things up
when the mm changes.

There was some discussion about how much faster a true zero copy would
go. Here's a link back to the email with some testing I did on that:

http://marc.info/?l=linux-mm&amp;m=130105930902915&amp;w=2

There is a basic man page for the proposed interface here:

http://ozlabs.org/~cyeoh/cma/process_vm_readv.txt

This has been implemented for x86 and powerpc, other architecture should
mainly (I think) just need to add syscall numbers for the process_vm_readv
and process_vm_writev. There are 32 bit compatibility versions for
64-bit kernels.

For arch maintainers there are some simple tests to be able to quickly
verify that the syscalls are working correctly here:

http://ozlabs.org/~cyeoh/cma/cma-test-20110718.tgz

Signed-off-by: Chris Yeoh &lt;yeohc@au1.ibm.com&gt;
Cc: Ingo Molnar &lt;mingo@elte.hu&gt;
Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" &lt;hpa@zytor.com&gt;
Cc: Thomas Gleixner &lt;tglx@linutronix.de&gt;
Cc: Arnd Bergmann &lt;arnd@arndb.de&gt;
Cc: Paul Mackerras &lt;paulus@samba.org&gt;
Cc: Benjamin Herrenschmidt &lt;benh@kernel.crashing.org&gt;
Cc: David Howells &lt;dhowells@redhat.com&gt;
Cc: James Morris &lt;jmorris@namei.org&gt;
Cc: &lt;linux-man@vger.kernel.org&gt;
Cc: &lt;linux-arch@vger.kernel.org&gt;
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton &lt;akpm@linux-foundation.org&gt;
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds &lt;torvalds@linux-foundation.org&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>fs: optimize out 16 bytes worth of padding in struct inode</title>
<updated>2011-10-29T12:24:18+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Theodore Ts'o</name>
<email>tytso@mit.edu</email>
</author>
<published>2011-10-29T12:24:18+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.tavy.me/linux-stable.git/commit/?id=6cdbb0effc2f511ced23e46f2117e4b31d3d4a50'/>
<id>6cdbb0effc2f511ced23e46f2117e4b31d3d4a50</id>
<content type='text'>
Rearrange the fields in struct inode so that on an x86_64 system,
fields that require 8-byte alignment don't end up causing 4-byte holes
in the structure.  It reduces the size of struct inode from 568 bytes
to 552 bytes.

Also move the fields protected by i_lock (i_blocks, i_bytes, and
i_size) into the same cache line as i_lock.

Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
Rearrange the fields in struct inode so that on an x86_64 system,
fields that require 8-byte alignment don't end up causing 4-byte holes
in the structure.  It reduces the size of struct inode from 568 bytes
to 552 bytes.

Also move the fields protected by i_lock (i_blocks, i_bytes, and
i_size) into the same cache line as i_lock.

Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" &lt;tytso@mit.edu&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>Merge branch 'for-next' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/hch/vfs-queue</title>
<updated>2011-10-28T17:49:34+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Linus Torvalds</name>
<email>torvalds@linux-foundation.org</email>
</author>
<published>2011-10-28T17:49:34+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.tavy.me/linux-stable.git/commit/?id=f362f98e7c445643d27c610bb7a86b79727b592e'/>
<id>f362f98e7c445643d27c610bb7a86b79727b592e</id>
<content type='text'>
* 'for-next' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/hch/vfs-queue: (21 commits)
  leases: fix write-open/read-lease race
  nfs: drop unnecessary locking in llseek
  ext4: replace cut'n'pasted llseek code with generic_file_llseek_size
  vfs: add generic_file_llseek_size
  vfs: do (nearly) lockless generic_file_llseek
  direct-io: merge direct_io_walker into __blockdev_direct_IO
  direct-io: inline the complete submission path
  direct-io: separate map_bh from dio
  direct-io: use a slab cache for struct dio
  direct-io: rearrange fields in dio/dio_submit to avoid holes
  direct-io: fix a wrong comment
  direct-io: separate fields only used in the submission path from struct dio
  vfs: fix spinning prevention in prune_icache_sb
  vfs: add a comment to inode_permission()
  vfs: pass all mask flags check_acl and posix_acl_permission
  vfs: add hex format for MAY_* flag values
  vfs: indicate that the permission functions take all the MAY_* flags
  compat: sync compat_stats with statfs.
  vfs: add "device" tag to /proc/self/mountstats
  cleanup: vfs: small comment fix for block_invalidatepage
  ...

Fix up trivial conflict in fs/gfs2/file.c (llseek changes)
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
* 'for-next' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/hch/vfs-queue: (21 commits)
  leases: fix write-open/read-lease race
  nfs: drop unnecessary locking in llseek
  ext4: replace cut'n'pasted llseek code with generic_file_llseek_size
  vfs: add generic_file_llseek_size
  vfs: do (nearly) lockless generic_file_llseek
  direct-io: merge direct_io_walker into __blockdev_direct_IO
  direct-io: inline the complete submission path
  direct-io: separate map_bh from dio
  direct-io: use a slab cache for struct dio
  direct-io: rearrange fields in dio/dio_submit to avoid holes
  direct-io: fix a wrong comment
  direct-io: separate fields only used in the submission path from struct dio
  vfs: fix spinning prevention in prune_icache_sb
  vfs: add a comment to inode_permission()
  vfs: pass all mask flags check_acl and posix_acl_permission
  vfs: add hex format for MAY_* flag values
  vfs: indicate that the permission functions take all the MAY_* flags
  compat: sync compat_stats with statfs.
  vfs: add "device" tag to /proc/self/mountstats
  cleanup: vfs: small comment fix for block_invalidatepage
  ...

Fix up trivial conflict in fs/gfs2/file.c (llseek changes)
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>vfs: add generic_file_llseek_size</title>
<updated>2011-10-28T12:58:59+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Andi Kleen</name>
<email>ak@linux.intel.com</email>
</author>
<published>2011-09-15T23:06:50+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.tavy.me/linux-stable.git/commit/?id=5760495a872d63a182962680a13c2af29235237c'/>
<id>5760495a872d63a182962680a13c2af29235237c</id>
<content type='text'>
Add a generic_file_llseek variant to the VFS that allows passing in
the maximum file size of the file system, instead of always
using maxbytes from the superblock.

This can be used to eliminate some cut'n'paste seek code in ext4.

Signed-off-by: Andi Kleen &lt;ak@linux.intel.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig &lt;hch@lst.de&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
Add a generic_file_llseek variant to the VFS that allows passing in
the maximum file size of the file system, instead of always
using maxbytes from the superblock.

This can be used to eliminate some cut'n'paste seek code in ext4.

Signed-off-by: Andi Kleen &lt;ak@linux.intel.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig &lt;hch@lst.de&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>vfs: do (nearly) lockless generic_file_llseek</title>
<updated>2011-10-28T12:58:58+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Andi Kleen</name>
<email>ak@linux.intel.com</email>
</author>
<published>2011-09-15T23:06:48+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.tavy.me/linux-stable.git/commit/?id=ef3d0fd27e90f67e35da516dafc1482c82939a60'/>
<id>ef3d0fd27e90f67e35da516dafc1482c82939a60</id>
<content type='text'>
The i_mutex lock use of generic _file_llseek hurts.  Independent processes
accessing the same file synchronize over a single lock, even though
they have no need for synchronization at all.

Under high utilization this can cause llseek to scale very poorly on larger
systems.

This patch does some rethinking of the llseek locking model:

First the 64bit f_pos is not necessarily atomic without locks
on 32bit systems. This can already cause races with read() today.
This was discussed on linux-kernel in the past and deemed acceptable.
The patch does not change that.

Let's look at the different seek variants:

SEEK_SET: Doesn't really need any locking.
If there's a race one writer wins, the other loses.

For 32bit the non atomic update races against read()
stay the same. Without a lock they can also happen
against write() now.  The read() race was deemed
acceptable in past discussions, and I think if it's
ok for read it's ok for write too.

=&gt; Don't need a lock.

SEEK_END: This behaves like SEEK_SET plus it reads
the maximum size too. Reading the maximum size would have the
32bit atomic problem. But luckily we already have a way to read
the maximum size without locking (i_size_read), so we
can just use that instead.

Without i_mutex there is no synchronization with write() anymore,
however since the write() update is atomic on 64bit it just behaves
like another racy SEEK_SET.  On non atomic 32bit it's the same
as SEEK_SET.

=&gt; Don't need a lock, but need to use i_size_read()

SEEK_CUR: This has a read-modify-write race window
on the same file. One could argue that any application
doing unsynchronized seeks on the same file is already broken.
But for the sake of not adding a regression here I'm
using the file-&gt;f_lock to synchronize this. Using this
lock is much better than the inode mutex because it doesn't
synchronize between processes.

=&gt; So still need a lock, but can use a f_lock.

This patch implements this new scheme in generic_file_llseek.
I dropped generic_file_llseek_unlocked and changed all callers.

Signed-off-by: Andi Kleen &lt;ak@linux.intel.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig &lt;hch@lst.de&gt;
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
The i_mutex lock use of generic _file_llseek hurts.  Independent processes
accessing the same file synchronize over a single lock, even though
they have no need for synchronization at all.

Under high utilization this can cause llseek to scale very poorly on larger
systems.

This patch does some rethinking of the llseek locking model:

First the 64bit f_pos is not necessarily atomic without locks
on 32bit systems. This can already cause races with read() today.
This was discussed on linux-kernel in the past and deemed acceptable.
The patch does not change that.

Let's look at the different seek variants:

SEEK_SET: Doesn't really need any locking.
If there's a race one writer wins, the other loses.

For 32bit the non atomic update races against read()
stay the same. Without a lock they can also happen
against write() now.  The read() race was deemed
acceptable in past discussions, and I think if it's
ok for read it's ok for write too.

=&gt; Don't need a lock.

SEEK_END: This behaves like SEEK_SET plus it reads
the maximum size too. Reading the maximum size would have the
32bit atomic problem. But luckily we already have a way to read
the maximum size without locking (i_size_read), so we
can just use that instead.

Without i_mutex there is no synchronization with write() anymore,
however since the write() update is atomic on 64bit it just behaves
like another racy SEEK_SET.  On non atomic 32bit it's the same
as SEEK_SET.

=&gt; Don't need a lock, but need to use i_size_read()

SEEK_CUR: This has a read-modify-write race window
on the same file. One could argue that any application
doing unsynchronized seeks on the same file is already broken.
But for the sake of not adding a regression here I'm
using the file-&gt;f_lock to synchronize this. Using this
lock is much better than the inode mutex because it doesn't
synchronize between processes.

=&gt; So still need a lock, but can use a f_lock.

This patch implements this new scheme in generic_file_llseek.
I dropped generic_file_llseek_unlocked and changed all callers.

Signed-off-by: Andi Kleen &lt;ak@linux.intel.com&gt;
Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig &lt;hch@lst.de&gt;
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
</feed>
