Re: [PATCH 00/11] Introduce Simple atomic and non-atomic counters

[Shuah Khan]

On 9/25/20 5:52 PM, Kees Cook wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 25, 2020 at 05:47:14PM -0600, Shuah Khan wrote:
> > -- Addressed Kees's comments:
> >     1. Non-atomic counters renamed to counter_simple32 and counter_simple64
> >        to clearly indicate size.
> >     2. Added warning for counter_simple* usage and it should be used only
> >        when there is no need for atomicity.
> >     3. Renamed counter_atomic to counter_atomic32 to clearly indicate size.
> >     4. Renamed counter_atomic_long to counter_atomic64 and it now uses
> >        atomic64_t ops and indicates size.
> >     5. Test updated for the API renames.
> >     6. Added helper functions for test results printing
> >     7. Verified that the test module compiles in kunit env. and test
> >        module can be loaded to run the test.
>
> Thanks for all of this!
>
> >     8. Updated Documentation to reflect the intent to make the API
> >        restricted so it can never be used to guard object lifetimes
> >        and state management. I left _return ops for now, inc_return
> >        is necessary for now as per the discussion we had on this topic.
>
> I still *really* do not want dec_return() to exist. That is asking for
> trouble. I'd prefer inc_return() not exist either, but I can live with
> it. ;)

Thanks. I am equally concerned about adding anything that can be used to
guard object lifetimes. So I will make sure this set won't expand and
plan to remove dec_return() if we don't find any usages.

thanks,
-- Shuah