linux-kernel - Re: [RFC] Disk shock protection (revisited)

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Date:	Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:10:08 +0100
From:	Elias Oltmanns <eo@...ensachen.de>
To:	linux-ide@...r.kernel.org
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@...cle.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC] Disk shock protection (revisited)

Willy Tarreau <w@....eu> wrote:
> Hi Elias,

Hi Willy,

>
> On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:56:31AM +0100, Elias Oltmanns wrote:
>
> [ very interesting project ]
>
>> Probably, the major problem is that I don't really know what kind of
>> applications (apart from shock protection) I should be thinking of that
>> might want to have a queue freezing facility at hand.
>
> In terms of applications, depending on the sensitivity of the accelerometer,
> we can imagine that a laptop would immediately force unmount crypted
> filesystems if it believes it's being stolen, for instance. It's just a
> random idea that comes to my mind, in the hope it may help you imagine
> some crazy usages.

Well, this application would use the same input data (acceleromtere) but
it would certainly not require a generic queue freezing facility.

> But generally you should not fool your mind with too many hypothetical
> cases, ideas will come once you provide a smart interface and this
> interface will evolve with future needs.
>
> Concerning your daemon, I think that every millisecond counts when a
> laptop falls on the floor. So I think that running it in the kernel
> should help you gain those precious milliseconds.

The idle immediate command itself may need up to 300 milliseconds to
complete according to the ATA standard. This seems like a very long time
compared to CPU standards, i.e., the time usually needed to serve a
lightweight daemon.

> I doubt your daemon could trigger fast enough while X is starting or
> during some activities which require a lot of CPU or uninterruptible
> I/O.

On my system the daemon's response *feels* just fine even while
compiling a kernel; I haven't done any measurements or benchmarks
though. The thing I'm most concerned about is uninterruptible I/O but
I'm not quite sure whether and how this can be addressed in kernel
space.

Regards,

Elias
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