From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S267622AbUHJRBK (ORCPT ); Tue, 10 Aug 2004 13:01:10 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S267605AbUHJQ5x (ORCPT ); Tue, 10 Aug 2004 12:57:53 -0400 Received: from omx1-ext.sgi.com ([192.48.179.11]:9625 "EHLO omx1.americas.sgi.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S267610AbUHJQz0 (ORCPT ); Tue, 10 Aug 2004 12:55:26 -0400 Message-ID: <4118FE9D.2050304@sgi.com> Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 11:58:05 -0500 From: Josh Aas User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.7.3 (X11/20040803) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Linux Kernel Mailing List , steiner@sgi.com Subject: bkl cleanup in do_sysctl Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org I'd like to hear people's thoughts on replacing the bkl in do_sysctl with a localized spin lock that protects the sysctl structures. Instead of grabbing the bkl, anyone that needs to mess with those values could grab the localized lock (1 to protect all structures). Such a localized lock would allow us to get rid of bkl usage in at least one other place as well (do_coredump). In order to do this though, we would have to make sure all code that grabs the bkl instead of the localized lock while using sysctl values switches to the new lock. Might be a big job, but perhaps it would be a good one to start after 2.6.8 is out the door. Thoughts? Comments? -- Josh Aas Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) Linux System Software 651-683-3068