01 Jul, 2006

1 commit


28 Jun, 2006

1 commit

  • In 2.6.17, there was a problem with cpu_notifiers and XFS. I provided a
    band-aid solution to solve that problem. In the process, i undid all the
    changes you both were making to ensure that these notifiers were available
    only at init time (unless CONFIG_HOTPLUG_CPU is defined).

    We deferred the real fix to 2.6.18. Here is a set of patches that fixes the
    XFS problem cleanly and makes the cpu notifiers available only at init time
    (unless CONFIG_HOTPLUG_CPU is defined).

    If CONFIG_HOTPLUG_CPU is defined then cpu notifiers are available at run
    time.

    This patch reverts the notifier_call changes made in 2.6.17

    Signed-off-by: Chandra Seetharaman
    Cc: Ashok Raj
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Chandra Seetharaman
     

26 Apr, 2006

1 commit


28 Mar, 2006

1 commit

  • The kernel's implementation of notifier chains is unsafe. There is no
    protection against entries being added to or removed from a chain while the
    chain is in use. The issues were discussed in this thread:

    http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=113018709002036&w=2

    We noticed that notifier chains in the kernel fall into two basic usage
    classes:

    "Blocking" chains are always called from a process context
    and the callout routines are allowed to sleep;

    "Atomic" chains can be called from an atomic context and
    the callout routines are not allowed to sleep.

    We decided to codify this distinction and make it part of the API. Therefore
    this set of patches introduces three new, parallel APIs: one for blocking
    notifiers, one for atomic notifiers, and one for "raw" notifiers (which is
    really just the old API under a new name). New kinds of data structures are
    used for the heads of the chains, and new routines are defined for
    registration, unregistration, and calling a chain. The three APIs are
    explained in include/linux/notifier.h and their implementation is in
    kernel/sys.c.

    With atomic and blocking chains, the implementation guarantees that the chain
    links will not be corrupted and that chain callers will not get messed up by
    entries being added or removed. For raw chains the implementation provides no
    guarantees at all; users of this API must provide their own protections. (The
    idea was that situations may come up where the assumptions of the atomic and
    blocking APIs are not appropriate, so it should be possible for users to
    handle these things in their own way.)

    There are some limitations, which should not be too hard to live with. For
    atomic/blocking chains, registration and unregistration must always be done in
    a process context since the chain is protected by a mutex/rwsem. Also, a
    callout routine for a non-raw chain must not try to register or unregister
    entries on its own chain. (This did happen in a couple of places and the code
    had to be changed to avoid it.)

    Since atomic chains may be called from within an NMI handler, they cannot use
    spinlocks for synchronization. Instead we use RCU. The overhead falls almost
    entirely in the unregister routine, which is okay since unregistration is much
    less frequent that calling a chain.

    Here is the list of chains that we adjusted and their classifications. None
    of them use the raw API, so for the moment it is only a placeholder.

    ATOMIC CHAINS
    -------------
    arch/i386/kernel/traps.c: i386die_chain
    arch/ia64/kernel/traps.c: ia64die_chain
    arch/powerpc/kernel/traps.c: powerpc_die_chain
    arch/sparc64/kernel/traps.c: sparc64die_chain
    arch/x86_64/kernel/traps.c: die_chain
    drivers/char/ipmi/ipmi_si_intf.c: xaction_notifier_list
    kernel/panic.c: panic_notifier_list
    kernel/profile.c: task_free_notifier
    net/bluetooth/hci_core.c: hci_notifier
    net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_core.c: ip_conntrack_chain
    net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_core.c: ip_conntrack_expect_chain
    net/ipv6/addrconf.c: inet6addr_chain
    net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_core.c: nf_conntrack_chain
    net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_core.c: nf_conntrack_expect_chain
    net/netlink/af_netlink.c: netlink_chain

    BLOCKING CHAINS
    ---------------
    arch/powerpc/platforms/pseries/reconfig.c: pSeries_reconfig_chain
    arch/s390/kernel/process.c: idle_chain
    arch/x86_64/kernel/process.c idle_notifier
    drivers/base/memory.c: memory_chain
    drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c cpufreq_policy_notifier_list
    drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c cpufreq_transition_notifier_list
    drivers/macintosh/adb.c: adb_client_list
    drivers/macintosh/via-pmu.c sleep_notifier_list
    drivers/macintosh/via-pmu68k.c sleep_notifier_list
    drivers/macintosh/windfarm_core.c wf_client_list
    drivers/usb/core/notify.c usb_notifier_list
    drivers/video/fbmem.c fb_notifier_list
    kernel/cpu.c cpu_chain
    kernel/module.c module_notify_list
    kernel/profile.c munmap_notifier
    kernel/profile.c task_exit_notifier
    kernel/sys.c reboot_notifier_list
    net/core/dev.c netdev_chain
    net/decnet/dn_dev.c: dnaddr_chain
    net/ipv4/devinet.c: inetaddr_chain

    It's possible that some of these classifications are wrong. If they are,
    please let us know or submit a patch to fix them. Note that any chain that
    gets called very frequently should be atomic, because the rwsem read-locking
    used for blocking chains is very likely to incur cache misses on SMP systems.
    (However, if the chain's callout routines may sleep then the chain cannot be
    atomic.)

    The patch set was written by Alan Stern and Chandra Seetharaman, incorporating
    material written by Keith Owens and suggestions from Paul McKenney and Andrew
    Morton.

    [jes@sgi.com: restructure the notifier chain initialization macros]
    Signed-off-by: Alan Stern
    Signed-off-by: Chandra Seetharaman
    Signed-off-by: Jes Sorensen
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Alan Stern
     

23 Mar, 2006

1 commit

  • Semaphore to mutex conversion.

    The conversion was generated via scripts, and the result was validated
    automatically via a script as well.

    Signed-off-by: Arjan van de Ven
    Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Arjan van de Ven
     

08 Jul, 2005

1 commit

  • Add a new section called ".data.read_mostly" for data items that are read
    frequently and rarely written to like cpumaps etc.

    If these maps are placed in the .data section then these frequenly read
    items may end up in cachelines with data is is frequently updated. In that
    case all processors in an SMP system must needlessly reload the cachelines
    again and again containing elements of those frequently used variables.

    The ability to share these cachelines will allow each cpu in an SMP system
    to keep local copies of those shared cachelines thereby optimizing
    performance.

    Signed-off-by: Alok N Kataria
    Signed-off-by: Shobhit Dayal
    Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter
    Signed-off-by: Shai Fultheim
    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    Christoph Lameter
     

17 May, 2005

1 commit

  • profile=schedule parsing is not quite what it should be. First, str[7] is
    'e', not ',', but then even if it did fall through, prof_on =
    SCHED_PROFILING would be clobbered inside if (get_option(...)) So a small
    amount of rearrangement is done in this patch to correct it.

    Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
    Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

    William Lee Irwin III
     

01 May, 2005

2 commits


17 Apr, 2005

1 commit

  • Initial git repository build. I'm not bothering with the full history,
    even though we have it. We can create a separate "historical" git
    archive of that later if we want to, and in the meantime it's about
    3.2GB when imported into git - space that would just make the early
    git days unnecessarily complicated, when we don't have a lot of good
    infrastructure for it.

    Let it rip!

    Linus Torvalds