[RFC][PATCH 0/4] Object creation with a specified id

[Nadia Derbey]

Oren Laadan wrote:
> 
> 
> Nadia Derbey wrote:
> 
>> Oren Laadan wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Nadia.Derbey at bull.net wrote:
>>>
>>>> A couple of weeks ago, a discussion has started after Pierre's 
>>>> proposal for
>>>> a new syscall to change an ipc id (see thread
>>>> http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/1/29/209).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Oren's suggestion was to force an object's id during its creation, 
>>>> rather
>>>> than 1. create it, 2. change its id.
>>>>
>>>> So here is an implementation of what Oren has suggested.
>>>>
>>>> 2 new files are defined under /proc/self:
>>>>   . next_ipcid --> next id to use for ipc object creation
>>>>   . next_pids --> next upid nr(s) to use for next task to be forked
>>>>                   (see patch #2 for more details).
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Generally looks good. One meta-comment, though:
>>>
>>> I wonder why you use separate files for separate resources, 
>>
>>
>> That would be needed in a situation wheere we don't care about next, 
>> say, ipc id to be created but we need a predefined pid. But I must 
>> admit I don't see any pratical application to it.
> 
> 
> exactly; why set the next-ipc value so far in advance ?  I think it's
> better (and less confusing) if we require that setting the next-id value
> be done right before the respective syscall.

Ok, but this "requirement" should be widely agreed upon ;-)

What I mean here is that the solution with 1 file per "object type" can 
easily be extended imho:
I don't know how the restart is supposed to work, but we can imagine 
feeding all these files with all the object ids just before restart and 
let the process pick up the objects ids as it needs them.
Of course, this would require to enhance the files formats, as well as 
the way things are stored in the task_struct.

Hope what I'm saying is not too stupid ;-) ?

Regards,
Nadia

> 
>>
>>> and why you'd
>>> want to write multiple identifiers in one go;
>>
>>
>> I used multiple identifiers only for the pid values: this is because 
>> when a new pid value is allocated for a process that belongs to nested 
>> namespaces, the lower level upid nr values are allocated in a single 
>> shot. (see alloc_pid()).
>>
>>> it seems to complicate the
>>> code and interface with minimal gain.
>>> In practice, a process will only do either one or the other, so a single
>>> file is enough (e.g. "next_id").
>>> Also, writing a single value at a time followed by the syscall is 
>>> enough;
>>> it's definitely not a performance issue to have multiple calls.
>>> We assume the user/caller knows what she's doing, so no need to classify
>>> the identifier (that is, tell the kernel it's a pid, or an ipc id) ahead
>>> of time. The caller simply writes a value and then calls the relevant
>>> syscall, or otherwise the results may not be what she expected...
>>> If such context is expected to be required (although I don't see any at
>>> the moment),  we can require that the user write "TYPE VALUE" pair to
>>> the "next_id" file.
>>
>>
>> That's exactly what I wanted to avoid by creating 1 file per object.
>> Now, it's true that in a restart context where I guess that things 
>> will be done synchronously, we could have a single next_id file.
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> When one of these files (or both of them) is filled, a structure 
>>>> pointed to
>>>> by the calling task struct is filled with these ids.
>>>>
>>>> Then, when the object is created, the id(s) present in that 
>>>> structure are
>>>> used, instead of the default ones.
>>>>
>>>> The patches are against 2.6.25-rc3-mm1, in the following order:
>>>>
>>>> [PATCH 1/4] adds the procfs facility for next ipc to be created.
>>>> [PATCH 2/4] adds the procfs facility for next task to be forked.
>>>> [PATCH 3/4] makes use of the specified id (if any) to allocate the 
>>>> new IPC
>>>>             object (changes the ipc_addid() path).
>>>> [PATCH 4/4] uses the specified id(s) (if any) to set the upid nr(s) 
>>>> for a newly
>>>>             allocated process (changes the 
>>>> alloc_pid()/alloc_pidmap() paths).
>>>>
>>>> Any comment and/or suggestions are welcome.
>>>>
>>>> Cc-ing Pavel and Sukadev, since they are the pid namespace authors.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Nadia
>>>>
>>>> -- 
>>>>
>>>> -- 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>> Nadia
> 
> 
>