Re: [linux-pm] Re: [PATCH] Remove process freezer from suspend to RAM pathway

["Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@sisk.pl>]

On Thursday, 5 July 2007 22:38, Miklos Szeredi wrote:
> > > > > > > Actually fuse allows SIGKILL, because it's always fatal, and the
> > > > > > > syscall may not be restarted.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > I think you want to stick try_to_freeze() at the same places where you
> > > > > > do SIGKILL handling. That should solve the 'syslogd is unfreezeable'
> > > > > > problem.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I could, but it would not solve the general problem.  Namely, that the
> > > > > presence of fuse imposes a certain ordering in which userspace tasks
> > > > > have to be frozen.  And it is not possible to know this ordering.
> > > > 
> > > > Actually, why do you need this? There is no absolute need that you
> > > > finish the request. You must either finish the request or let yourself
> > > > be frozen.
> > > > 
> > > > A quick look through fuse reveals principally request_wait_answer()
> > > > And maybe a few other places. Is there some hidden reason you cannot
> > > > handle being frozen here?
> > > 
> > > Yes, fuse could handle being frozen there.  However that would only
> > > solve part of the problem: an operation waiting for a reply could be
> > > holding a VFS mutex and some other task may be blocked on that mutex.
> > > 
> > > How would you solve freezing those tasks?
> > 
> > How probable is this situation?
> 
> I guess it depends on usage patterns.
> 
> I don't remember seeing any such cases, even though I have a permanent
> fuse mount, and I suspend regularly.  But the fs is probably totally
> idle during suspend in my case.
> 
> But some people use fuse as a home or root filesystem and in those
> cases it can become quite likely to cause problems.

That means we need to prevent the freezer from sending freeze requests FUSE's
filesystem servers too early.

What about this (more or less):
1) We add a list of userland processes to the freezer that should not be frozen
in the first phase (ie. during the freezing of user space).  They will be frozen
anyway along with the freezable kernel threads.
2) FUSE adds its filesystem servers to this list upon connecting to them
3) FUSE removes its filesystem servers from this list upon disconnecting

Greetings,
Rafael


-- 
"Premature optimization is the root of all evil." - Donald Knuth