Re: [RFC PATCH 1/2] kernel/notifier: replace single-linked list with double-linked list for reverse traversal

Petr Mladek
2026-04-21T09:05:26Z

On Mon 2026-04-20 14:44:29, Masami Hiramatsu wrote:
> Hi Song,
>
> On Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:01:37 +0800
> chensong_2000@189.cn wrote:
>
> > From: Song Chen <chensong_2000@189.cn>
> >
> > The current notifier chain implementation uses a single-linked list
> > (struct notifier_block *next), which only supports forward traversal
> > in priority order. This makes it difficult to handle cleanup/teardown
> > scenarios that require notifiers to be called in reverse priority order.
>
> What about introducing a new notification callback API that allows you
> to describe dependencies between callback functions?
>
> For example, when registering a callback, you could register a string
> as an ID and specify whether to call it before or after that ID,
> or you could register a comparison function that is called when adding
> to a list. (I prefer @name and @depends fields so that it can be easily
> maintained.)

This looks too complex. It would make sense only
when this API has more users.

Also this won't be enough for the ftrace/livepatch callbacks.
They need to be ordered against against each other. But they
also need to be called before/after all other callbacks.
For example, when the module is loaded:

+ 1st frace
+ 2nd livepatch
+ then other notifiers

See the commit c1bf08ac26e92122 ("ftrace: Be first to run code
modification on modules").

> This would allow for better dependency building when adding to the list.

> >
> > A concrete example is the ordering dependency between ftrace and
> > livepatch during module load/unload. see the detail here [1].
>
> If this only concerns notification callback issues with the ftrace
> and livepatch modules, it's far more robust to simply call the
> necessary processing directly when the modules load and unload,
> rather than registering notification callbacks externally.
>
> There are fprobe, kprobe and its trace-events, all of them are using
> ftrace as its fundation layer. In this case, I always needs to
> consider callback order when a module is unloaded.
>
> If ftrace is working as a part of module callbacks, it will conflict
> with fprobe/kprobe module callback. Of course we can reorder it with
> modifying its priority. But this is ugly, because when we introduce
> a new other feature which depends on another layer, we need to
> reorder the callback's priority number on the list.
>
> Based on the above, I don't think this can be resolved simply by
> changing the list of notification callbacks to a bidirectional list.

I agree. I would keep it as is (hardcoded).

Best Regards,
Petr