lkml.org 
[lkml]   [2006]   [Feb]   [15]   [last100]   RSS Feed
Views: [wrap][no wrap]   [headers]  [forward] 
 
Messages in this thread
/
Date
From
SubjectRe: [patch 0/5] lightweight robust futexes: -V1
Andi Kleen wrote:
> On Wednesday 15 February 2006 18:50, Ulrich Drepper wrote:
>>Andi Kleen wrote:
>>
>>>e.g. you could add a new VMA flag that says "when one user
>>>of this dies unexpectedly by a signal kill all"
>>
>>"kill all"?

> It would solve the problem statement given by Ingo in the rationale
> for this kernel patch - cleaning up after a hanging yum.
>
> If there are any other problems this is intended to solve then they
> should be stated in the rationale.

"robust" mutexes isn't a new thing, so I assume Ingo didn't think he
needed to post the whole rationale.

Consider a group of tasks that want to use a mutex to control access to
data. If one of them dies while holding the mutex, the state of the
data is unknown and the mutex is left locked.

The goal is for the kernel to unlock the mutex, but the next task to
aquire it gets some special notification that the status is unknown. At
that point the task can either validate/clean up the data and reset the
mutex to clean (if it can) or it can give up the mutex and pass it on to
some other task that does know how to validate/clean up.

You want the speed of futexes if possible. You want to keep running.
You just want to know that the data protected by the mutex may not be
self-consistent.

Chris
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/

\
 
 \ /
  Last update: 2006-02-15 20:52    [W:0.077 / U:0.400 seconds]
©2003-2020 Jasper Spaans|hosted at Digital Ocean and TransIP|Read the blog|Advertise on this site