netdev - Re: [PATCH v2] creds: Convert cred.usage to refcount

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Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 16:07:49 -0500
From: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>
To: Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>
Cc: Jeff Layton <jlayton@...nel.org>,  Andrew Morton
 <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,  Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>,
  linux-hardening@...r.kernel.org,  Elena Reshetova
 <elena.reshetova@...el.com>,  David Windsor <dwindsor@...il.com>,  Hans
 Liljestrand <ishkamiel@...il.com>,  Trond Myklebust
 <trond.myklebust@...merspace.com>,  Anna Schumaker <anna@...nel.org>,
  Chuck Lever <chuck.lever@...cle.com>,  Neil Brown <neilb@...e.de>,  Olga
 Kornievskaia <kolga@...app.com>,  Dai Ngo <Dai.Ngo@...cle.com>,  Tom
 Talpey <tom@...pey.com>,  "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,  Eric
 Dumazet <edumazet@...gle.com>,  Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>,  Paolo
 Abeni <pabeni@...hat.com>,  Sergey Senozhatsky <senozhatsky@...omium.org>,
  Alexey Gladkov <legion@...nel.org>,  Yu Zhao <yuzhao@...gle.com>,
  linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,  linux-nfs@...r.kernel.org,
  netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] creds: Convert cred.usage to refcount_t

Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org> writes:

> On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 04:10:49PM -0400, Jeff Layton wrote:
>> [...]
>> extra checks (supposedly) compile down to nothing. It should be possible
>> to build alternate refcount_t handling functions that are just wrappers
>> around atomic_t with no extra checks, for folks who want to really run
>> "fast and loose".
>
> No -- there's no benefit for this. We already did all this work years
> ago with the fast vs full break-down. All that got tossed out since it
> didn't matter. We did all the performance benchmarking and there was no
> meaningful difference -- refcount _is_ atomic with an added check that
> is branch-predicted away. Peter Zijlstra and Will Deacon spent a lot of
> time making it run smoothly. :)

Since you did all of the work should the text size of be growing by a
kilobyte for this change?

Is that expected?

That is a valid concern with this change and it really should be
justified in the change long as someone brought it up.

Eric