Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:49:24 +0100
From:      "Robert N. M. Watson" <rwatson@freebsd.org>
To:        John Baldwin <jhb@freebsd.org>
Cc:        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, Sebastian Huber <sebastian.huber@embedded-brains.de>
Subject:   Re: callout(9) and Giant lock
Message-ID:  <732D77F4-6D18-4724-A76C-FB38B9DAE0F1@freebsd.org>
In-Reply-To: <200907131417.53876.jhb@freebsd.org>
References:  <4A4740B8.8090205@embedded-brains.de> <alpine.BSF.2.00.0906281653160.69417@fledge.watson.org> <200907131417.53876.jhb@freebsd.org>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help

On 13 Jul 2009, at 19:17, John Baldwin wrote:

>> Callouts are marked as MPSAFE or non-MPSAFE when registered.  If  
>> non-MPSAFE,
>> we will acquire Giant automatically for the callout, but I believe  
>> we'll also
>> try and sort non-MPSAFE callouts behind MPSAFE ones in execution  
>> order to
>> minimize latency for MPSAFE callouts.  Most callouts acquire locks  
>> of some
>> sort, and stalling any callout indefinitely will stall the entire  
>> callout
>> thread indefinitely, which in turn could lead to a variety of odd  
>> behaviors
>> and potentially (although not necessarily) deadlock.
>
> FWIW, we do not actually sort the callouts in this manner, so all  
> callouts
> will be blocked until Giant is acquired.

I must have been remembering a proposed change -- as you say, it's  
certainly not in kern_timeout.c. However, I'd rather just eliminate  
support for Giant in callouts in 9.x than try to further facilitate  
them :-)

Robert



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?732D77F4-6D18-4724-A76C-FB38B9DAE0F1>