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Date:      Wed, 28 Jun 2000 23:18:36 +0000 (GMT)
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
To:        frank@exit.com
Cc:        tlambert@primenet.com (Terry Lambert), jasone@canonware.com (Jason Evans), smp@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: SMP meeting summary
Message-ID:  <200006282318.QAA03832@usr08.primenet.com>
In-Reply-To: <200006260631.XAA43949@realtime.exit.com> from "Frank Mayhar" at Jun 25, 2000 11:31:51 PM

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> Terry Lambert wrote:
> > In Streams, this was addressed by removing two primitives, and creating
> > what are called "priority bands" to deal with the issue (I worked for
> > Novell USG when UnixWare was going to 2.0 and integrating the ES/MP code
> > into the SVR4 base, and saw much of this happen).
> 
> Speaking of which, there has _got_ to be a better way.  It's possible
> when dealing with Streams to get into nested-lock situations where you
> need a lock with a lower priority and it's not possible (due to constraints
> elsewhere) to raise the priority of the lock.  And, of course, it's always
> dangerous to raise the priority of an existing lock, since you may miss
> a case.
> 
> I'm not sure that interrupt threads are the right way to go either, though.
> 
> If there even _is_ a "right" way.

One way that was "accidently" discovered at Novell was to run into
the streams stack at interrupt context, until one reached a
synchronization point.

Obviously, this doesn't work the same in all stacks, and can only
be run to completion unidirectionally, in the best case, but it
was enough to justify the changeover to ODI drivers.  8-).


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.


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