Re: [patch] drivers: wait for threaded probes between initcall levels

[Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>]

On Fri, 27 Oct 2006 11:47:29 -0700
Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@osdl.org> wrote:

> On Fri, 27 Oct 2006 11:42:37 -0700
> Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org> wrote:
> 
> > From: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
> > 
> > The multithreaded-probing code has a problem: after one initcall level (eg,
> > core_initcall) has been processed, we will then start processing the next
> > level (postcore_initcall) while the kernel threads which are handling
> > core_initcall are still executing.  This breaks the guarantees which the
> > layered initcalls previously gave us.
> > 
> > IOW, we want to be multithreaded _within_ an initcall level, but not between
> > different levels.
> > 
> > Fix that up by causing the probing code to wait for all outstanding probes at
> > one level to complete before we start processing the next level.
> > 
> > Cc: Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>
> > Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
> > ---
> > 
> 
> This looks like a good place to use a counting semaphore.
> 

I couldn't work out a way of doing that.  I guess one could a) count the
number of threads which are going to be started, b) start them all, c) do
an up() when each thread ends and d) handle errors somehow.