linux-kernel - Re: [4/7] dst: thread pool.

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Message-Id: <200812171655.05020.arnd@arndb.de>
Date:	Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:55:04 +0100
From:	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>
To:	Evgeniy Polyakov <zbr@...emap.net>,
	Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@...nel.crashing.org>
Cc:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [4/7] dst: thread pool.

On Wednesday 17 December 2008, Evgeniy Polyakov wrote:
> 
> Thread pool abstraction allows to schedule a work to be performed
> on behalf of kernel thread. One does not operate with threads itself,
> instead user provides setup and cleanup callbacks for thread pool itself,
> and action and cleanup callbacks for each submitted work.
> 
> Each worker has private data initialized at creation time and data,
> provided by user at scheduling time.
> 
> When action is being performed, thread can not be used by other users,
> instead they will sleep until there is free thread to pick their work.
> 
> Thread pool is used for crypto processing of incoming and outgoing IO
> requests to reduce the overall overhead.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Evgeniy Polyakov <zbr@...emap.net>

Have you looked at the last discussion involving thread pools in Linux?
BenH brought up the topic earlier this year, it is archived on
https://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/ksummit-2008-discuss/2008-July/000213.html

So while it seems that there is clearly a use for such infrastructure,
my feeling is that it should not be part of dst, but rather live
in a location where it can be used by every subsystem.

Of course getting it there means another flame war^W^W discussion about what
the right interface should look like.

My personal feeling is that the interface should look a lot like
the existing work queues, to the point where you can easily convert
drivers between them, or even move all work queues over to thread pools.

	Arnd <><
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