1. 09 Nov, 2012 2 commits
    • Andrew Morton's avatar
      revert "epoll: support for disabling items, and a self-test app" · a80a6b85
      Andrew Morton authored
      Revert commit 03a7beb5 ("epoll: support for disabling items, and a
      self-test app") pending resolution of the issues identified by Michael
      Kerrisk, copied below.
      
      We'll revisit this for 3.8.
      
      : I've taken a look at this patch as it currently stands in 3.7-rc1, and
      : done a bit of testing. (By the way, the test program
      : tools/testing/selftests/epoll/test_epoll.c does not compile...)
      :
      : There are one or two places where the behavior seems a little strange,
      : so I have a question or two at the end of this mail. But other than
      : that, I want to check my understanding so that the interface can be
      : correctly documented.
      :
      : Just to go though my understanding, the problem is the following
      : scenario in a multithreaded application:
      :
      : 1. Multiple threads are performing epoll_wait() operations,
      :    and maintaining a user-space cache that contains information
      :    corresponding to each file descriptor being monitored by
      :    epoll_wait().
      :
      : 2. At some point, a thread wants to delete (EPOLL_CTL_DEL)
      :    a file descriptor from the epoll interest list, and
      :    delete the corresponding record from the user-space cache.
      :
      : 3. The problem with (2) is that some other thread may have
      :    previously done an epoll_wait() that retrieved information
      :    about the fd in question, and may be in the middle of using
      :    information in the cache that relates to that fd. Thus,
      :    there is a potential race.
      :
      : 4. The race can't solved purely in user space, because doing
      :    so would require applying a mutex across the epoll_wait()
      :    call, which would of course blow thread concurrency.
      :
      : Right?
      :
      : Your solution is the EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE operation. I want to
      : confirm my understanding about how to use this flag, since
      : the description that has accompanied the patches so far
      : has been a bit sparse
      :
      : 0. In the scenario you're concerned about, deleting a file
      :    descriptor means (safely) doing the following:
      :    (a) Deleting the file descriptor from the epoll interest list
      :        using EPOLL_CTL_DEL
      :    (b) Deleting the corresponding record in the user-space cache
      :
      : 1. It's only meaningful to use this EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE in
      :    conjunction with EPOLLONESHOT.
      :
      : 2. Using EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE without using EPOLLONESHOT in
      :    conjunction is a logical error.
      :
      : 3. The correct way to code multithreaded applications using
      :    EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE and EPOLLONESHOT is as follows:
      :
      :    a. All EPOLL_CTL_ADD and EPOLL_CTL_MOD operations should
      :       should EPOLLONESHOT.
      :
      :    b. When a thread wants to delete a file descriptor, it
      :       should do the following:
      :
      :       [1] Call epoll_ctl(EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE)
      :       [2] If the return status from epoll_ctl(EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE)
      :           was zero, then the file descriptor can be safely
      :           deleted by the thread that made this call.
      :       [3] If the epoll_ctl(EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE) fails with EBUSY,
      :           then the descriptor is in use. In this case, the calling
      :           thread should set a flag in the user-space cache to
      :           indicate that the thread that is using the descriptor
      :           should perform the deletion operation.
      :
      : Is all of the above correct?
      :
      : The implementation depends on checking on whether
      : (events & ~EP_PRIVATE_BITS) == 0
      : This replies on the fact that EPOLL_CTL_AD and EPOLL_CTL_MOD always
      : set EPOLLHUP and EPOLLERR in the 'events' mask, and EPOLLONESHOT
      : causes those flags (as well as all others in ~EP_PRIVATE_BITS) to be
      : cleared.
      :
      : A corollary to the previous paragraph is that using EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE
      : is only useful in conjunction with EPOLLONESHOT. However, as things
      : stand, one can use EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE on a file descriptor that does
      : not have EPOLLONESHOT set in 'events' This results in the following
      : (slightly surprising) behavior:
      :
      : (a) The first call to epoll_ctl(EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE) returns 0
      :     (the indicator that the file descriptor can be safely deleted).
      : (b) The next call to epoll_ctl(EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE) fails with EBUSY.
      :
      : This doesn't seem particularly useful, and in fact is probably an
      : indication that the user made a logic error: they should only be using
      : epoll_ctl(EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE) on a file descriptor for which
      : EPOLLONESHOT was set in 'events'. If that is correct, then would it
      : not make sense to return an error to user space for this case?
      
      Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
      Cc: "Paton J. Lewis" <palewis@adobe.com>
      Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
      Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
      a80a6b85
    • Joe Perches's avatar
      checkpatch: improve network block comment style checking · c24f9f19
      Joe Perches authored
      Some comment styles in net and drivers/net are flagged inappropriately.
      
      Avoid proclaiming inline comments like:
      	int a = b;	/* some comment */
      and block comments like:
      	/*********************
      	 * some comment
      	 ********************/
      are defective.
      
      Tested with
      $ cat drivers/net/t.c
      /* foo */
      
      /*
       * foo
       */
      
      /* foo
       */
      
      /* foo
       * bar */
      
      /****************************
       * some long block comment
       ***************************/
      
      struct foo {
      	int bar;	/* another test */
      };
      $
      Signed-off-by: default avatarJoe Perches <joe@perches.com>
      Reported-by: default avatarLarry Finger <Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net>
      Cc: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
      Cc: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@vyatta.com>
      Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
      Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
      c24f9f19
  2. 04 Nov, 2012 1 commit
  3. 03 Nov, 2012 15 commits
  4. 02 Nov, 2012 22 commits