Date:	Mon, 12 Jan 2015 02:08:37 -0800
From:	Josh Triplett <josh@...htriplett.org>
To:	Fam Zheng <famz@...hat.com>
Cc:	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>,
	Miklos Szeredi <mszeredi@...e.cz>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, X86 ML <x86@...nel.org>,
	Alexander Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Juri Lelli <juri.lelli@...il.com>, Zach Brown <zab@...bo.net>,
	David Drysdale <drysdale@...gle.com>,
	Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>,
	Alexei Starovoitov <ast@...mgrid.com>,
	David Herrmann <dh.herrmann@...il.com>,
	Dario Faggioli <raistlin@...ux.it>,
	Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@...hat.com>,
	Mike Frysinger <vapier@...too.org>,
	Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@...ibm.com>,
	Rasmus Villemoes <linux@...musvillemoes.dk>,
	Oleg Nesterov <oleg@...hat.com>,
	Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com>,
	Fabian Frederick <fabf@...net.be>,
	"David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
	Linux FS Devel <linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Linux API <linux-api@...r.kernel.org>,
	Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@...hat.com>,
	Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@...hat.com>,
	"Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages@...il.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/3] epoll: Add epoll_pwait1 syscall

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 04:24:00PM +0800, Fam Zheng wrote:
> On Thu, 01/08 21:21, Josh Triplett wrote:
> > On Fri, Jan 09, 2015 at 12:49:08PM +0800, Fam Zheng wrote:
> > > On Thu, 01/08 18:24, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 5:52 PM, Fam Zheng <famz@...hat.com> wrote:
> > > > > On Thu, 01/08 17:28, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> > > > >> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 5:25 PM, Fam Zheng <famz@...hat.com> wrote:
> > > > >> > On Thu, 01/08 09:57, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> > > > >> >> I'd like to see a more ambitious change, since the timer isn't the
> > > > >> >> only problem like this.  Specifically, I'd like a syscall that does a
> > > > >> >> list of epoll-related things and then waits.  The list of things could
> > > > >> >> include, at least:
> > > > >> >>
> > > > >> >>  - EPOLL_CTL_MOD actions: level-triggered epoll users are likely to
> > > > >> >> want to turn on and off their requests for events on a somewhat
> > > > >> >> regular basis.
> > > > >> >
> > > > >> > This sounds good to me.
> > > > >> >
> > > > >> >>
> > > > >> >>  - timerfd_settime actions: this allows a single syscall to wait and
> > > > >> >> adjust *both* monotonic and real-time wakeups.
> > > > >> >
> > > > >> > I'm not sure, doesn't this break orthogonality between epoll and timerfd?
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Yes.  It's not very elegant, and more elegant ideas are welcome.
> > > > >
> > > > > What is the purpose of embedding timerfd operation here? Modifying timerfd
> > > > > for each poll doesn't sound a common pattern to me.
> > > > 
> > > > Setting a timeout is definitely a common pattern, hence this thread.
> > > > But the current timeout interface sucks, and people should really use
> > > > absolute time.  (My epoll software uses absolute time.)  But then
> > > > users need to decide whether to have their timeout based on the
> > > > monotonic clock or the realtime clock (or something else entirely).
> > > > Some bigger programs may want both -- they may have internal events
> > > > queued for certain times and for certain timeouts, and those should
> > > > use realtime and monotonic respectively.  Heck, users may also want
> > > > separate slack values on those.
> > > > 
> > > > Timerfd is the only thing we have right now that is anywhere near
> > > > flexible enough.  Obviously if epoll became fancy enough, then we
> > > > could do away with the timerfd entirely here.
> > > > 
> > > > >
> > > > >>
> > > > >> >
> > > > >> >>
> > > > >> >> Would this make sense?  It could look like:
> > > > >> >>
> > > > >> >> int epoll_mod_and_pwait(int epfd,
> > > > >> >>   struct epoll_event *events, int maxevents,
> > > > >> >>   struct epoll_command *commands, int ncommands,
> > > > >> >>   const sigset_t *sigmask);
> > > > >> >
> > > > >> > What about flags?
> > > > >> >
> > > > >>
> > > > >> No room.  Maybe it should just be a struct for everything instead of
> > > > >> separate args.
> > > > >
> > > > > Also no room for timeout. A single struct sounds the only way to go.
> > > > 
> > > > That's what timerfd is for.  I think it would be a bit weird to
> > > > support "timeout" and detailed timerfd control.
> > > 
> > > I see what you mean. Thanks.
> > > 
> > > I still don't like hooking timerfd in the interface. Besides the unclean
> > > interface, it also feels cubersome and overkill to let users setup and add a
> > > dedicated timerfd to implement timeout.
> > > 
> > > How about this:
> > > 
> > > int epoll_mod_wait(int epfd, struct epoll_mod_wait_data *data);
> > > 
> > > struct epoll_mod_wait_data {
> > > 	struct epoll_event *events;
> > > 	int maxevents;
> > > 	struct epoll_mod_cmd {
> > > 		int op,
> > > 		int fd;
> > > 		void *data;
> > > 	} *cmds;
> > > 	int ncmds;
> > > 	int flags;
> > > 	sigset_t *sigmask;
> > > };
> > > 
> > > Commands ops are:
> > > 
> > > 	EPOLL_CTL_ADD
> > > 		@fd is the fd to modify; @data is epoll_event.
> > > 	EPOLL_CTL_MOD
> > > 		@fd is the fd to modify; @data is epoll_event.
> > > 	EPOLL_CTL_DEL
> > > 		@fd is the fd to modify; @data is epoll_event.
> > > 
> > > 	EPOLL_CTL_SET_TIMEOUT
> > > 		@fd is ignored, @data is timespec.
> > > 		Clock type and relative/absolute are selected by flags as below.
> > > 
> > > Flags are given to override timeout defaults:
> > > 	EPOLL_FL_MONOTONIC_CLOCK
> > > 		If set, don't use realtime clock, use monotonic clock.
> > > 	EPOLL_FL_ABSOLUTE_TIMEOUT
> > > 		If set, don't use relative timeout, use absolute timeout.
> > 
> > I'd suggest using an "int clockid" field instead, like timerfd_settime;
> > even if it only accepts CLOCK_REALTIME and CLOCK_MONOTONIC, if it needs
> > extending in the future, it'd be painful to have to remap new CLOCK_*
> > constants into the EPOLL_FL_* namespace.  (I do think dropping timeouts
> > in favor of timerfds makes things more nicely orthogonal, but epoll_wait
> > already has a timeout parameter, so *shrug*.)
> > 
> > Also, I think that structure has too many levels of indirection; it'd
> > produce many unnecessary cache misses; considering you're trying to
> > eliminate the overhead of one or two extra syscalls, you don't want to
> > introduce a pile of unnecessary cache misses in the processes.  I'd
> > suggest inlining cmds as an array at the end of the structure, and
> > turning "void *data" into an inline epoll_event.  (Or, you could use
> > "events" as an in/out parameter.)
> > 
> > You could drop EPOLL_CTL_SET_TIMEOUT, and just include a clockid and
> > timespec directly in the top-level structure.
> > 
> > And I'd suggest either making flags a top-level parameter or putting it
> > at the start of the structure, to make future extension easier.
> 
> Makes sense to me, thanks.
> 
> Also the number of cmds are undecided until we do a copy_from_user for the
> header fields before another one for specified number of cmds. So I think it's
> better to move ncmds and cmds to top level parameter.

That seems like an even better idea, yeah.

- Josh Triplett
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