diff options
| author | Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net> | 2009-02-01 14:26:59 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net> | 2009-03-16 08:32:27 -0600 |
| commit | 76398425bb06b07cc3a3b1ce169c67dc9d6874ed (patch) | |
| tree | e6e1800edda88b5592617a950daacf2199587a33 /Documentation/filesystems | |
| parent | db1dd4d376134eba0e08af523b61cc566a4ea1cd (diff) | |
Move FASYNC bit handling to f_op->fasync()
Removing the BKL from FASYNC handling ran into the challenge of keeping the
setting of the FASYNC bit in filp->f_flags atomic with regard to calls to
the underlying fasync() function. Andi Kleen suggested moving the handling
of that bit into fasync(); this patch does exactly that. As a result, we
have a couple of internal API changes: fasync() must now manage the FASYNC
bit, and it will be called without the BKL held.
As it happens, every fasync() implementation in the kernel with one
exception calls fasync_helper(). So, if we make fasync_helper() set the
FASYNC bit, we can avoid making any changes to the other fasync()
functions - as long as those functions, themselves, have proper locking.
Most fasync() implementations do nothing but call fasync_helper() - which
has its own lock - so they are easily verified as correct. The BKL had
already been pushed down into the rest.
The networking code has its own version of fasync_helper(), so that code
has been augmented with explicit FASYNC bit handling.
Cc: Al Viro <viro@ZenIV.linux.org.uk>
Cc: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
Reviewed-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/filesystems')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/filesystems/Locking | 7 |
1 files changed, 5 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/Locking b/Documentation/filesystems/Locking index ec6a9392a17..4e78ce67784 100644 --- a/Documentation/filesystems/Locking +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/Locking @@ -437,8 +437,11 @@ grab BKL for cases when we close a file that had been opened r/w, but that can and should be done using the internal locking with smaller critical areas). Current worst offender is ext2_get_block()... -->fasync() is a mess. This area needs a big cleanup and that will probably -affect locking. +->fasync() is called without BKL protection, and is responsible for +maintaining the FASYNC bit in filp->f_flags. Most instances call +fasync_helper(), which does that maintenance, so it's not normally +something one needs to worry about. Return values > 0 will be mapped to +zero in the VFS layer. ->readdir() and ->ioctl() on directories must be changed. Ideally we would move ->readdir() to inode_operations and use a separate method for directory |