Re: [PATCH 6/6] fs: Introduce kern_mount_special() to mountspecial vfs

From: Al Viro
Date: Fri Nov 28 2008 - 04:26:40 EST


On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 12:32:59AM +0100, Eric Dumazet wrote:
> This function arms a flag (MNT_SPECIAL) on the vfs, to avoid
> refcounting on permanent system vfs.
> Use this function for sockets, pipes, anonymous fds.

IMO that's pushing it past the point of usefulness; unless you can show
that this really gives considerable win on pipes et.al. *AND* that it
doesn't hurt other loads...

dput() part: again, I want to see what happens on other loads; it's probably
fine (and win is certainly more than from mntput() change), but... The
thing is, atomic_dec_and_lock() in there is often done on dentries with
d_count > 1 and that's fairly cheap (and doesn't involve contention on
dcache_lock on sane targets).

FWIW, unless there's a really good reason to do alpha atomic_dec_and_lock()
in a special way, I'd try to compare with
if (atomic_add_unless(&dentry->d_count, -1, 1))
return;
if (your flag)
sod off to special
spin_lock(&dcache_lock);
if (atomic_dec_and_test(&dentry->d_count)) {
spin_unlock(&dcache_lock);
return;
}
the rest as usual

As for the alpha... unless I'm misreading the assembler in
arch/alpha/lib/dec_and_lock.c, it looks like we have essentially an
implementation of atomic_add_unless() in there and one that just
might be better than what we've got in arch/alpha/include/asm/atomic.h.
How about
1: ldl_l x, addr
cmpne x, u, y /* y = x != u */
beq y, 3f /* if !y -> bugger off, return 0 */
addl x, a, y
stl_c y, addr /* y <- *addr has not changed since ldl_l */
beq y, 2f
3: /* return value is in y */
.subsection 2 /* out of the way */
2: br 1b
.previous
for atomic_add_unless() guts? With that we are rid of HAVE_DEC_LOCK and
get a uniform implementation of atomic_dec_and_lock() for all targets...

AFAICS, that would be
static __inline__ int atomic_add_unless(atomic_t *v, int a, int u)
{
unsigned long temp, res;
__asm__ __volatile__(
"1: ldl_l %0,%1\n"
" cmpne %0,%4,%2\n"
" beq %4,3f\n"
" addl %0,%3,%4\n"
" stl_c %2,%1\n"
" beq %2,2f\n"
"3:\n"
".subsection 2\n"
"2: br 1b\n"
".previous"
:"=&r" (temp), "=m" (v->counter), "=&r" (res)
:"Ir" (a), "Ir" (u), "m" (v->counter) : "memory");
smp_mb();
return res;
}

static __inline__ int atomic64_add_unless(atomic64_t *v, long a, long u)
{
unsigned long temp, res;
__asm__ __volatile__(
"1: ldq_l %0,%1\n"
" cmpne %0,%4,%2\n"
" beq %4,3f\n"
" addq %0,%3,%4\n"
" stq_c %2,%1\n"
" beq %2,2f\n"
"3:\n"
".subsection 2\n"
"2: br 1b\n"
".previous"
:"=&r" (temp), "=m" (v->counter), "=&r" (res)
:"Ir" (a), "Ir" (u), "m" (v->counter) : "memory");
smp_mb();
return res;
}

Comments?
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