diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/filesystems/dentry-locking.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/filesystems/dentry-locking.txt | 40 |
1 files changed, 19 insertions, 21 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/dentry-locking.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/dentry-locking.txt index 79334ed5daa..30b6a40f565 100644 --- a/Documentation/filesystems/dentry-locking.txt +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/dentry-locking.txt @@ -31,6 +31,7 @@ significant change is the way d_lookup traverses the hash chain, it doesn't acquire the dcache_lock for this and rely on RCU to ensure that the dentry has not been *freed*. +dcache_lock no longer exists, dentry locking is explained in fs/dcache.c Dcache locking details ====================== @@ -50,14 +51,12 @@ Safe lock-free look-up of dcache hash table Dcache is a complex data structure with the hash table entries also linked together in other lists. In 2.4 kernel, dcache_lock protected -all the lists. We applied RCU only on hash chain walking. The rest of -the lists are still protected by dcache_lock. Some of the important -changes are : +all the lists. RCU dentry hash walking works like this: 1. The deletion from hash chain is done using hlist_del_rcu() macro which doesn't initialize next pointer of the deleted dentry and this allows us to walk safely lock-free while a deletion is - happening. + happening. This is a standard hlist_rcu iteration. 2. Insertion of a dentry into the hash table is done using hlist_add_head_rcu() which take care of ordering the writes - the @@ -66,19 +65,18 @@ changes are : which has since been replaced by hlist_for_each_entry_rcu(), while walking the hash chain. The only requirement is that all initialization to the dentry must be done before - hlist_add_head_rcu() since we don't have dcache_lock protection - while traversing the hash chain. This isn't different from the - existing code. - -3. The dentry looked up without holding dcache_lock by cannot be - returned for walking if it is unhashed. It then may have a NULL - d_inode or other bogosity since RCU doesn't protect the other - fields in the dentry. We therefore use a flag DCACHE_UNHASHED to - indicate unhashed dentries and use this in conjunction with a - per-dentry lock (d_lock). Once looked up without the dcache_lock, - we acquire the per-dentry lock (d_lock) and check if the dentry is - unhashed. If so, the look-up is failed. If not, the reference count - of the dentry is increased and the dentry is returned. + hlist_add_head_rcu() since we don't have lock protection + while traversing the hash chain. + +3. The dentry looked up without holding locks cannot be returned for + walking if it is unhashed. It then may have a NULL d_inode or other + bogosity since RCU doesn't protect the other fields in the dentry. We + therefore use a flag DCACHE_UNHASHED to indicate unhashed dentries + and use this in conjunction with a per-dentry lock (d_lock). Once + looked up without locks, we acquire the per-dentry lock (d_lock) and + check if the dentry is unhashed. If so, the look-up is failed. If not, + the reference count of the dentry is increased and the dentry is + returned. 4. Once a dentry is looked up, it must be ensured during the path walk for that component it doesn't go away. In pre-2.5.10 code, this was @@ -86,10 +84,10 @@ changes are : In some sense, dcache_rcu path walking looks like the pre-2.5.10 version. -5. All dentry hash chain updates must take the dcache_lock as well as - the per-dentry lock in that order. dput() does this to ensure that - a dentry that has just been looked up in another CPU doesn't get - deleted before dget() can be done on it. +5. All dentry hash chain updates must take the per-dentry lock (see + fs/dcache.c). This excludes dput() to ensure that a dentry that has + been looked up concurrently does not get deleted before dget() can + take a ref. 6. There are several ways to do reference counting of RCU protected objects. One such example is in ipv4 route cache where deferred |