[PATCH -mm 0/3] proc: task->signal can't be NULL
From: Oleg Nesterov
Date: Mon Mar 22 2010 - 14:43:36 EST
With the recent changes in -mm it is always safe to dereference
task->signal. It can't be NULL and it is pinned to task_struct.
fs/proc becomes the only valid user of signal->count which should
either die or become "int nr_threads".
Alexey, Eric.
Can't we kill this counter? Afaics, get_nr_threads() doesn't need to
be "precise", we probably can estimate the number of threads using
signal->live (yes sure, we can't use ->live as nr_threads).
Except: first_tid() uses get_nr_threads() for optimization. Is this
optimization really important? Afaics, it only helps in the unlikely
case, probably in that case the extra lockless while_each_thread()
doesn't hurt.
IOW, how about
--- a/fs/proc/base.c
+++ b/fs/proc/base.c
@@ -3071,11 +3071,6 @@ static struct task_struct *first_tid(str
goto found;
}
- /* If nr exceeds the number of threads there is nothing todo */
- pos = NULL;
- if (nr && nr >= get_nr_threads(leader))
- goto out;
-
/* If we haven't found our starting place yet start
* with the leader and walk nr threads forward.
*/
?
Not that I think it is terribly important to kill this counter, and
probably signal->nr_threads can make sense anyway, so far I am just
curious.
Oleg.
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