04 Oct, 2006
3 commits
-
Currently the init_srcu_struct() routine has no way to report out-of-memory
errors. This patch (as761) makes it return -ENOMEM when the per-cpu data
allocation fails.The patch also makes srcu_init_notifier_head() report a BUG if a notifier
head can't be initialized. Perhaps it should return -ENOMEM instead, but
in the most likely cases where this might occur I don't think any recovery
is possible. Notifier chains generally are not created dynamically.[akpm@osdl.org: avoid statement-with-side-effect in macro]
Signed-off-by: Alan Stern
Acked-by: Paul E. McKenney
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds -
This patch (as751) adds a new type of notifier chain, based on the SRCU
(Sleepable Read-Copy Update) primitives recently added to the kernel. An
SRCU notifier chain is much like a blocking notifier chain, in that it must
be called in process context and its callout routines are allowed to sleep.
The difference is that the chain's links are protected by the SRCU
mechanism rather than by an rw-semaphore, so calling the chain has
extremely low overhead: no memory barriers and no cache-line bouncing. On
the other hand, unregistering from the chain is expensive and the chain
head requires special runtime initialization (plus cleanup if it is to be
deallocated).SRCU notifiers are appropriate for notifiers that will be called very
frequently and for which unregistration occurs very seldom. The proposed
"task notifier" scheme qualifies, as may some of the network notifiers.Signed-off-by: Alan Stern
Acked-by: Paul E. McKenney
Acked-by: Chandra Seetharaman
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds -
Updated patch adding a variant of RCU that permits sleeping in read-side
critical sections. SRCU is as follows:o Each use of SRCU creates its own srcu_struct, and each
srcu_struct has its own set of grace periods. This is
critical, as it prevents one subsystem with a blocking
reader from holding up SRCU grace periods for other
subsystems.o The SRCU primitives (srcu_read_lock(), srcu_read_unlock(),
and synchronize_srcu()) all take a pointer to a srcu_struct.o The SRCU primitives must be called from process context.
o srcu_read_lock() returns an int that must be passed to
the matching srcu_read_unlock(). Realtime RCU avoids the
need for this by storing the state in the task struct,
but SRCU needs to allow a given code path to pass through
multiple SRCU domains -- storing state in the task struct
would therefore require either arbitrary space in the
task struct or arbitrary limits on SRCU nesting. So I
kicked the state-storage problem up to the caller.Of course, it is not permitted to call synchronize_srcu()
while in an SRCU read-side critical section.o There is no call_srcu(). It would not be hard to implement
one, but it seems like too easy a way to OOM the system.
(Hey, we have enough trouble with call_rcu(), which does
-not- permit readers to sleep!!!) So, if you want it,
please tell me why...[josht@us.ibm.com: sparse notation]
Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney
Signed-off-by: Josh Triplett
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds
