Re: [PATCH v6 08/20] liveupdate: luo_flb: Introduce File-Lifecycle-Bound global state

[Pasha Tatashin <pasha.tatashin@soleen.com>]

On Thu, Nov 20, 2025 at 1:50 PM Mike Rapoport <rppt@kernel.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Nov 18, 2025 at 10:37:30AM -0500, Pasha Tatashin wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 18, 2025 at 6:28 AM Mike Rapoport <rppt@kernel.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Mon, Nov 17, 2025 at 10:54:29PM -0500, Pasha Tatashin wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > The concept makes sense to me, but it's hard to review the implementation
> > > > > without an actual user.
> > > >
> > > > There are three users: we will have HugeTLB support that is going to
> > > > be posted as RFC in a few weeks. Also, in two weeks we are going to
> > > > have an updated VFIO and IOMMU series posted both using FLBs. In the
> > > > mean time, this series provides an FLB in-kernel test that verifies
> > > > that multiple FLBs can be attached to File-Handlers, and the basic
> > > > interfaces are working.
> > >
> > > Which means that essentially there won't be a real kernel user for FLB for
> > > a while.
> > > We usually don't merge dead code because some future patchset depends on
> > > it.
> >
> > I understand the concern. I would prefer to merge FLB with the rest of
> > the LUO series; I don't view it as completely dead code since I have
> > added the in-kernel test that specifically exercises and validates
> > this API.
>
> The test exercises a simple happy flow, but it still does not validate that
> this API is what we'll be using in the end.
> It's quite probable that the first upstream user of FLB will use this exact
> API, but chances are that it will require adjustments to "the real life".
>
> It does look sane, but without an actual user (sorry, but the test does not
> count) it's hard to anticipate the potential required changes and potential
> corner cases.
>
> Let's hold FLB until it can be actually consumed by HugeTLB or VFIO or
> IOMMU.

Ok

> > > I think it should stay in mm-nonmm-unstable if Andrew does not mind keeping
> > > it there until the first user is going to land and then FLB will move
> > > upstream along with that user.
> >
> > My reasoning for pushing for inclusion now is that there are many
> > developers who currently depend on the FLB functionality. Having it in
> > a public tree, preferably upstream, or at least linux-next, would be
> > highly beneficial for their development and testing.
> >
> > However, to avoid blocking the entire series, I am going to move the
> > FLB patch and the in-kernel test patch to be the last two patches in
> > LUOv7.
> >
> > This way, the rest of the LUO series can be merged without them if
> > they are blocked, however, in this case it would be best if the two
> > FLB patches stayed in mm tree to allow VFIO/IOMMU/PCI/HugeTLB
> > preservation developers to use them, as they all depend on functional
> > FLB.
>
> That's pretty much what I'm suggesting just without "if they are blocked" :)

SGTM

>
> > Pasha
>
> --
> Sincerely yours,
> Mike.
>