Re: [PATCH] task_work: remove fifo ordering guarantee

Al Viro
2015-09-05T05:42:56Z

On Sat, Sep 05, 2015 at 06:12:34AM +0100, Al Viro wrote:

> First of all, we'd better not count on e.g. delayed fput() *NOT* doing
> task_work_add() - we still need to check if any new work had been added.
> After all, final close() might very well have done a final mntput()
> on a lazy-unmounted filesystem, possibly leaving us with fs shutdown via
> task_work_add(). And if that sucker e.g. closes a socket, well, we are
> back to closing an opened struct file, with task_work_add() etc.
>
> I'm a bit nervious about filp_close() (that sucker is exported and widely
> abused), but close_files()... sure, shouldn't be a problem. And yes,
> we can teach __close_fd() to do the same. I really don't understand what's
> the benefit, though - it's about the case when we are closing the last
> descriptor for given opened file, so I would be rather surprised if slower
> path taken on the way out to userland was not lost in noise...

OK, having found the beginning of the thread, I understand what is being
attempted, but... why the hell bother with FIFO in the first place? AFAICS,
task_work_add() uses in VFS (final fput() and final mntput() alike)
do not care about the FIFO at all.

Sure, some out-of-tree mer^H^Hodule might rely on that. So what?

IMO, unless we have a good in-tree reason for insisting on FIFO, dropping it
is the most obvious solution...