Re: [PATCH] Send quota messages via netlink

[Balbir Singh <balbir@linux.vnet.ibm.com>]

Andrew Morton wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 16:13:18 +0200 Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz> wrote:
> 
>>   Hello,
>>
>>   I'm sending rediffed patch implementing sending of quota messages via netlink
>> interface (some rationale in patch description). I've already posted it to
>> LKML some time ago and there were no objections, so I guess it's fine to put
>> it to -mm. Andrew, would you be so kind? Thanks.
>>   Userspace deamon reading the messages from the kernel and sending them to
>> dbus and/or user console is also written (it's part of quota-tools). The
>> only remaining problem is there are a few changes needed to libnl needed for
>> the userspace daemon. They were basically acked by the maintainer but it
>> seems he has not merged the patches yet. So this will take a bit more time.
>>
> 
> So it's a new kernel->userspace interface.
> 
> But we have no description of the interface :(
> 

And could we have some description of the context under which all the message
exchanges take place. When are these messages sent out -- what event
is the user space notified of?

>> +/* Send warning to userspace about user which exceeded quota */
>> +static void send_warning(const struct dquot *dquot, const char warntype)
>> +{
>> +	static unsigned long seq;
>> +	struct sk_buff *skb;
>> +	void *msg_head;
>> +	int ret;
>> +
>> +	skb = genlmsg_new(QUOTA_NL_MSG_SIZE, GFP_NOFS);
>> +	if (!skb) {
>> +		printk(KERN_ERR
>> +		  "VFS: Not enough memory to send quota warning.\n");
>> +		return;
>> +	}
>> +	msg_head = genlmsg_put(skb, 0, seq++, &quota_genl_family, 0, QUOTA_NL_C_WARNING);
>> +	if (!msg_head) {
>> +		printk(KERN_ERR
>> +		  "VFS: Cannot store netlink header in quota warning.\n");
>> +		goto err_out;

One problem, we've been is losing notifications. It does not happen for us
due to the cpumask interface (which allows us to have parallel sockets
for each cpu or a set of cpus). How frequent are your notifications?

>> +	}
>> +	ret = nla_put_u32(skb, QUOTA_NL_A_QTYPE, dquot->dq_type);
>> +	if (ret)
>> +		goto attr_err_out;
>> +	ret = nla_put_u64(skb, QUOTA_NL_A_EXCESS_ID, dquot->dq_id);
>> +	if (ret)
>> +		goto attr_err_out;
>> +	ret = nla_put_u32(skb, QUOTA_NL_A_WARNING, warntype);
>> +	if (ret)
>> +		goto attr_err_out;
>> +	ret = nla_put_u32(skb, QUOTA_NL_A_DEV_MAJOR,
>> +		MAJOR(dquot->dq_sb->s_dev));
>> +	if (ret)
>> +		goto attr_err_out;
>> +	ret = nla_put_u32(skb, QUOTA_NL_A_DEV_MINOR,
>> +		MINOR(dquot->dq_sb->s_dev));
>> +	if (ret)
>> +		goto attr_err_out;
>> +	ret = nla_put_u64(skb, QUOTA_NL_A_CAUSED_ID, current->user->uid);
>> +	if (ret)
>> +		goto attr_err_out;
>> +	genlmsg_end(skb, msg_head);
>> +

Have you looked at ensuring that the data structure works across 32 bit
and 64 bit systems (in terms of binary compatibility)? That's usually
a nice to have feature.

>> +	ret = genlmsg_multicast(skb, 0, quota_genl_family.id, GFP_NOFS);
>> +	if (ret < 0 && ret != -ESRCH)
>> +		printk(KERN_ERR
>> +			"VFS: Failed to send notification message: %d\n", ret);
>> +	return;
>> +attr_err_out:
>> +	printk(KERN_ERR "VFS: Failed to compose quota message: %d\n", ret);
>> +err_out:
>> +	kfree_skb(skb);
>> +}
>> +#endif
> 
> This is it.  Normally netlink payloads are represented as a struct.  How
> come this one is built-by-hand?
> 
> It doesn't appear to be versioned.  Should it be?
> 

Yes, versioning is always nice and genetlink supports it.

> Does it have (or need) reserved-set-to-zero space for expansion?  Again,
> hard to tell..
> 
> I guess it's OK to send a major and minor out of the kernel like this. 
> What's it for?  To represent a filesytem?  I wonder if there's a more
> modern and useful way of describing the fs.  Path to mountpoint or
> something?
> 
> I suspect the namespace virtualisation guys would be interested in a new
> interface which is sending current->user->uid up to userspace.  uids are
> per-namespace now.  What are the implications?  (cc's added)
> 

The memory controller or VM would also be interested in notifications
of OOM. At OLS this year interest was shown in getting OOM notifications
and allow the user space a chance to handle the notification and take
action (especially for containers). We already have containerstats for
containers (which I was planning to reuse), but I was told that we would
be interested in user space OOM notifications in general.

> Is it worth adding a comment explaining why GFP_NOFS is used here?
> 
> 


-- 
	Warm Regards,
	Balbir Singh
	Linux Technology Center
	IBM, ISTL