Message-ID: <m1wsk5hjm0.fsf@frodo.ebiederm.org>
Date:	Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:30:47 -0700
From:	ebiederm@...ssion.com (Eric W. Biederman)
To:	Tejun Heo <htejun@...il.com>
Cc:	Benjamin Thery <benjamin.thery@...l.net>,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...e.de>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Daniel Lezcano <dlezcano@...ibm.com>,
	Serge Hallyn <serue@...ibm.com>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Al Viro <viro@....linux.org.uk>,
	Linux Containers <containers@...ts.osdl.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 06/11] sysfs: Implement sysfs tagged directory support.

Tejun Heo <htejun@...il.com> writes:

> Hello,
>
> Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>>> Having enumed tag types limits that a sb can have map to only one tag
>>> but it doesn't really prevent multiple possibly visible entries which is
>>> the real unnecessary degrees of freedom.  That said, I don't really
>>> think it's an issue.
>> 
>> Having a single tag type per directory and thus a single tag visible per
>> directory does prevent multiple possible visible entries.
>> 
>> That is we can check when we add the sd if there will be a conflict in
>> the directory.
>
> Yeap, that we can do.

What we are implementing is not, a sb with a set of tags that are displayed,
but directories with a single tag that is displayed.  The sb just happens
to hold the state for the directories.

A directory displaying only a single tag is an necessary constraint for
a large number of reasons.

>> And array allows the lookup of the tag I am looking for before
>> I search for the sd.  An bitmap requires me to compare each entry.
>
> How so?  sysfs_sb->bitmap which contains enough bits for all the defined
> tags and determining whether a sd should be shown or not is as simple as
> single test_bit.

Yes. The compare happens to be test_bit. 

With a bitmap you must visit each dirent with a given name and see if
it has a tag that is displayed.

With an array you can lookup the tag aprori and can potentially do a
hash table lookup or a tree lookup and are not required to visit each
entry.

> What I'm feeling unease about is the extra level of abstraction added by
> tag types.  A sd is given a tag.  A sb shows a set of tags.  The most
> straight forward to implement that is to give sd a tag and test the tag
> against sb's set of tags.  The type is added because pointer tag
> requires sequential matching which is usually best to avoid.  It's
> nothing fundamental.  It's an extra baggage.

That is just one important aspect of it.   We need a way to describe
which tag a sb,directory pair displays.  It is a fundamental concept.

>>> Using ida (or idr if a pointer for private data is necessary) is really
>>> easy.  It'll probably take a few tens of lines of code.  That said, I
>>> don't think I have enough rationale to nack what you described.  So, as
>>> long as the tags are made static, I won't object.
>> 
>> Sounds good.  The only justification I can think of for ida tags is that
>> they are smaller, and so can keep the sysfs_dirents smaller.    Which
>> occasionally is a significant concern.  Still that should be an optimization
>> that we can apply later, as it is not a structural difference in the code.
>> 
>> Just to confirm.  Do you the two operations:
>>   mount_tag - called only when the sb is mounted 
>>   kobject_tag - called when we create new sd or rename an sd
>> 
>> Cause you to view an the tags as dynamic?
>
> The thing is that I don't really see why there's tagged_dir_ops at all.

We need callbacks for interfacing with the kobject layer, and for
selecting our set of tags at mount time.  Not tagged_dir_ops so much
as tagged_type_ops.

>  What's needed is tagged sd's and sb's which can show subset of those
> tags, so adding callback ops for tags just doesn't make much sense to
> me.  The interface should ideally be...

> 1. alloc/release tag
     Agreed.

> 2. set / change / remove tag on sd
     Essentially agreed.

     Create an sd with a tag, change the tag on a sd.
     Having an untagged sd in a directory that requires tags should
     not be allowed.

> 3. enable / disable tag on a sb
     Disagree that is too flexible.  Tags on a sb need to be
     unchanging or else we get vfs layer issues.

    Further the abstraction is logically exactly one tag on a
    (sb,directory) pair.

    The operations needed are.
    - Select the set of tags on a sb (at mount time)
      This requires we call a set of callbacks.  [ My mount_sb callback ]

    - release a tag (which implies removing all tagged entries and
      removing the sb reference)

4. Interface with the kobject layer.
   kobject_add calls sysfs_create_dir
   kboject_rename calls sysfs_rename_dir 
   kobject_del calls sysfs_remove_dir

   For the first two operations we need a helper function to go from a
   kobject to a tag.

   For the second two operations we need to go from a kobject to a sd.

> This has been my opinion from the beginning.  Unless the tags need to be
> changed dynamically on demand (which I hope is not the case), there just
> is plainly no reason to have callbacks for tags.

We don't need callbacks to poll to see if the tags on a sd have
changed.

We need helper functions for interfacing with the rest of the kernel. 

Eric
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