Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 09 Aug 2006 03:20:11 -0400 | From | Jeff Garzik <> | Subject | Re: [RFC][PATCH 8/9] 3c59x driver conversion |
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Peter Zijlstra wrote: > On Wed, 2006-08-09 at 02:30 -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote: >> David Miller wrote: >>> From: Daniel Phillips <phillips@google.com> >>> Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2006 22:51:20 -0700 >>> >>>> Elaborate please. Do you think that all drivers should be updated to >>>> fix the broken blockdev semantics, making NETIF_F_MEMALLOC redundant? >>>> If so, I trust you will help audit for it? >>> I think he's saying that he doesn't think your code is yet a >>> reasonable way to solve the problem, and therefore doesn't belong >>> upstream. >> Pretty much. It is completely non-sensical to add NETIF_F_MEMALLOC, >> when it should be blindingly obvious that every net driver will be >> allocating memory, and every net driver could potentially be used with >> NBD and similar situations. > > Sure, but until every single driver is converted I'd like to warn people > about the fact that their setups is not up to expectations. Iff all > drivers are converted I'll be the forst to submit a patch that removes > the feature flag.
A temporary-for-years flag is not a good approach. The flag is not _needed_ for technical reasons, but for supposed user expectation reasons.
Rather, just go ahead and convert drivers to netdev_alloc_skb() where people care. If someone suddenly gets a burr up their ass about the sunlance or epic100 driver deadlocking on NBD, then they can convert it or complain loudly themselves.
Overall, a good solution needs to be uniform across all net drivers. NETIF_F_MEMALLOC is just _encouraging_ people to be slackers and delay converting other drivers, creating two classes of drivers, the "haves" and the "have nots".
Just make a big netdev_alloc_skb() patch that converts most users. netdev_alloc_skb() is a good thing to use, because it builds an association with struct net_device and the allocation.
Jeff
P.S. Since netdev_alloc_skb() calls skb_reserve(), you need to take that into account. That's a bug in current patches. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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