Re: [git pull] vfs.git - including i_mutex wrappers

Dave Chinner
2016-01-23T22:44:42Z

On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 09:34:56AM +1100, Dave Chinner wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 02:58:54PM +0000, Al Viro wrote:
> > ->i_mutex wrappers (with small prereq in lustre), fix for too
>
> Please explain, Al?
>
> I haven't heard anything about there being i_mutex changes pending,
> and this commit says "over the coming cycle ->i_mutex will become
> rwsem". That's a complete surprise to me, and not something that
> should be done with no warning.
>
> What's the locking model? How are filesystems supposed to use it?
> Are they even allowed to use read-mode locking, and if so, what
> operations is it going to be safe to hold the lock in read mode?
>
> Why is this change considered valid now, when previously there's
> always been significant push-back to any suggestion that we should
> make the i_mutex a rwsem so we can do shared read-only access
> locking on inode operations?

FWIW, I'm not opposed to making such a locking change - I'm more
concerned about the fact I'm finding out about plans for such a
fundamental locking change from a pull request on the last day of a
merge window....

Cheers,

Dave.
--
Dave Chinner
david@fromorbit.com