Re: Question about pseudo filesystems

From: Daniel Phillips (phillips@arcor.de)
Date: Sat Sep 07 2002 - 07:00:51 EST


On Wednesday 04 September 2002 20:02, Jamie Lokier wrote:
> I have a small problem with a module I'm writing. It uses a
> pseudo-filesystem, rather like futexes and pipes, so that it can hand
> out special file descriptors on request.
>
> Following the examples of pipe.c and futex.c, but specifically for a 2.4
> kernel, I'm doing this:
>
> static DECLARE_FSTYPE (mymod_fs_type, "mymod_fs",
> mymod_read_super, FS_NOMOUNT);
>
>
> static int __init mymod_init (void)
> {
> int err = register_filesystem (&mymod_fs_type);
> if (err)
> return err;
> mymod_mnt = kern_mount (&mymod_fs_type);
> if (IS_ERR (mymod_mnt)) {
> unregister_filesystem (&mymod_fs_type);
> return PTR_ERR (mymod_mnt);
> }
> }
>
> static void __exit mymod_exit (void)
> {
> mntput (mymod_mnt);
> unregister_filesystem (&mymod_fs_type);
> }
>
> Unfortunately, when I come to _unload_ the module, it can't be unloaded
> because the kern_mount increments the module reference count.
>
> (pipe.c in 2.4 appears to have the same problem, but of course nobody
> can ever unload it anyway so it doesn't matter).
>
> I'm handing out file descriptors rather like futexes from 2.5: they all
> share the same dentry, which is the root of the filesystem. In my
> code's case, that dentry is created in `mymod_read_super' (just the same
> way as 2.4 pipe.c).
>
> Somehow, it looks like I need to mount the filesystem when it first
> generates an fd, and unmount it when the last fd is destroyed -- but is
> it safe to unmount the filesystem _within_ a release function of an
> inode on the filesystem?
>
> Either that, or I need something else.

It's a good example of why the module interface is stupidly wrong, and
__exit needs to be called by the module unloader, returning 0 if it's
ok to unload. Then your __exit can whatever condition it's interested
in and, if all is well, do the kern_umount.

-- 
Daniel
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