Re: [PATCH 12/15] driver core: Implement tagged directory support for device classes.

From: Eric W. Biederman
Date: Wed Jul 16 2008 - 02:42:29 EST


Tejun Heo <htejun@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

> It's a bit scary tho. Working inode->i_dentry or dentry->d_alias
> crosses multiple sb's. sysfs isn't too greedy about dcache/icache.
> Only open files and directories hold them and only single copy of
> sysfs_dirent is there for most nodes. Wouldn't it be better to stay on
> the safer side and use separate inode hierarchy?

To do that I believe we would need to ensure sysfs does not use
the inode->i_mutex lock except to keep the VFS layer out. Allowing us
to safely change the directory structure, without holding it.

You raise a good point about inode->i_dentry and dentry->d_alias.
Generally they are used by fat like filesystems but I am starting to
see uses in generic pieces of code. I don't see any problems today
but yes it would be good to do the refactoring to allow us to duplicate
the inodes.

Eric

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