Re: [PATCH 1/8] cpumask: Replace cpumask_of_cpu with cpumask_of_cpu_ptr

[Mike Travis <travis@sgi.com>]

Rusty Russell wrote:
...
>> Another thought I had is perhaps cpumask.h should define something that
>> indicates a "huge NR_CPUS count" that is used globally to trigger things
>> like kmalloc of cpumask variables, instead of declaring them on the
>> stack...?  Or (as has been discussed in the past), maybe a new cpumask_t
>> type will be needed?
> 
> AFAICT the final answer has to be a get_cpu_mask()/put_cpu_mask(), which 
> sleeps and doesn't nest (so we can use a pool allocator).  Of course, that 
> kind of analysis is non-trivial, so I suggest that's not for this merge 
> window...
> 
> Want me to try something and see if it boots?
> Rusty.

Hi Rusty,

There are a number of occasions where a function declares a temporary cpumask_t
variable on the stack to hold (say) current->cpus_allowed.  I tried a couple of
options early on to a.) reserve one or two cpumask_t variables in the task
struct; and b.) reserve one or two cpumask_t variables per cpu.  Both had weird
consequences in some usages and since 4096 is *only* 512 bytes, it didn't seem
worth the effort.  Our next iteration will have NR_CPUS=16384 and therefore
removing all stack declared cpumask_t variables is highly desirable.

Your idea of a pool allocator is very interesting... ;-)

Thanks,
Mike