Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:30:25 -0700 (PDT) | From | David Rientjes <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH 1/2] x86: Cleanup TIF value gaps in shift range |
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On Mon, 18 Oct 2010, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
> I agree in general, but this is stupid as hell. No fcking interface > should exposed kernel internal flag bits just as hex values and no > fcking luser space should rely on it to be a subject of no change. > > Seriously, if we can't even change TIF_* bits anymore then we are > doing something wrong. That's a pure kernel internal affair and > subject to change. >
I agree, and when I added them to the show_state() dumps, I should have probably enumerated the bits of interest to userspace and printed them much like taint flags: use 'M' for my bit of interest, TIF_MEMDIE, which gives access to memory reserves. We care a _lot_ about detecting hung tasks that have that bit set because it usually indicates a VM problem where we've allowed complete depletion of memory reserves. There's no other way to detect that, so we need to export TIF_MEMDIE somehow and if that's by doing (ti->flags & TIF_MEMDIE) ? "M" : "" then that's fine by me. I hope we can do that before changing its value, though.
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