Re: Design-Question: end_that_request_* and bh->b_end_io hooks

[Jens Axboe <axboe@suse.de>]

On Tue, Jul 24 2001, Carsten Otte wrote:
> Hi  Folks,
> 
> as you are deeper into block-devices & filesystems than me,
> here are my two simple questions in short:
> Is it legal for a filesystem (or whatever) to install a hook into
> bh->b_end_io
> which calls generic_make_request?

No, b_end_io might be called from irq context (IDE for instance) which
will break for __make_request (both the _irq spin locks and the schedule
on request slot empty).

You could do bh stacking and defer stuff like this to a thread, that's
probably the way to go.

> Do block drivers need or are they allowed to hold the io_request_lock or
> other (local) locks when calling end_that_request_*?

Yes they may, in fact they _must_ hold it for end_that_request_last.
Look at blkdev_release_request -- it meddles with the queue free and
pending lists and must be protected against reentrancy. 

-- 
Jens Axboe