Re: [RESEND RFC PATCH 1/3] Introduce per thread user-kernel shared structure

From: Greg KH
Date: Thu Sep 09 2021 - 03:38:26 EST


On Wed, Sep 08, 2021 at 05:10:23PM -0700, Prakash Sangappa wrote:
> A structure per thread is allocated from a page that is shared mapped
> between user space and kernel as means for faster communication. This will
> facilitate sharing information, Ex: per thread stats shared between kernel
> and user space, that can be read by applications without the need for
> making frequent system calls in latency sensitive code path.
>
> A new system call is added, which will allocate the shared structure and
> return its mapped user address. Multiple such structures will be allocated
> on a page to accommodate requests from different threads of a multithreaded
> process. Available space on a page is managed using a bitmap. When a thread
> exits, the shared structure is freed and can get reused for another thread
> that requests the shared structure. More pages will be allocated and used
> as needed based on the number of threads requesting use of shared
> structures. These pages are all freed when the process exits.
>
> Each of these shared structures are rounded to 128 bytes. Available space
> in this structure can be used to accommodate additional per thread stats,
> state etc as needed. In future, if more space beyond 128 bytes, is
> needed, multiple such shared structures per thread could be allocated and
> managed by the kernel. Although, space in shared structure for sharing any
> kind of stats or state should be sparingly used. Therefore shared structure
> layout is not exposed to user space. the system call will return the
> mapped user address of a specific member or nested structure within the
> shared structure corresponding to stats requested, This would allow future
> enhancements/changes without breaking the API.
>
> Signed-off-by: Prakash Sangappa <prakash.sangappa@xxxxxxxxxx>

Where is the Documentation/ABI/ entries for this new user/kernel abi
that you are creating and must maintain for the next 20+ years?

thanks,

greg k-h