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Subjectatomicity
Is there a way for a program to make a section of code atomic?  I think
it would be useful to allow root programs (or, for added security, root
programs with special permissions or listed in a certain file) to
protect a certain section of their code so thoroughly that while in that
section
a) the scheduler will not interrupt them
b) they cannot receive _any_ signals, including SIGKILL

If this feature does not exist, I am guessing that writing it will make
it more possible to write such things as background defragmenters,
though additional kernel interfaces would probably be needed to keep the
FS from confusing itself..... e.g.

defragmenter enters protected block
defragger moves a disk block
defragger modifies inode to reflect change
defragger tells FS about change
defragger exits protected block

(note: some changes would be needed for safety: maybe tell FS about
change, then implement, then tell FS complete..., have various dirtiness
flags......)

So the defragmenter flipped around parts of the disk without anybody
else caring. With the defragger running as an idle-process only when
the system load is low, it can effectively keep the disk at near-zero
fragmentation without serious slow-down.

--

______________________________
/ David Feuer \
| dfeuer@binx.mbhs.edu |
| feuer@his.com |
\ david@feuer.his.com /
-----------------------------




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