tree 73a70ba486f522cd9eeeef376ede2b5a1c1b473b
parent 6e72ad2c581de121cc7e772469e2a8f6b1fd4379
author Dipankar Sarma <dipankar@in.ibm.com> 1126296253 -0700
committer Linus Torvalds <torvalds@g5.osdl.org> 1126299475 -0700

[PATCH] files: files struct with RCU

Patch to eliminate struct files_struct.file_lock spinlock on the reader side
and use rcu refcounting rcuref_xxx api for the f_count refcounter.  The
updates to the fdtable are done by allocating a new fdtable structure and
setting files->fdt to point to the new structure.  The fdtable structure is
protected by RCU thereby allowing lock-free lookup.  For fd arrays/sets that
are vmalloced, we use keventd to free them since RCU callbacks can't sleep.  A
global list of fdtable to be freed is not scalable, so we use a per-cpu list.
If keventd is already handling the current cpu's work, we use a timer to defer
queueing of that work.

Since the last publication, this patch has been re-written to avoid using
explicit memory barriers and use rcu_assign_pointer(), rcu_dereference()
premitives instead.  This required that the fd information is kept in a
separate structure (fdtable) and updated atomically.

Signed-off-by: Dipankar Sarma <dipankar@in.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>