Since commit e22553e2a2 ("eventfd: don't take the spinlock in
eventfd_poll", 2015-02-17), eventfd is reading ctx->count outside
ctx->wqh.lock.
However, things aren't as simple as the read barrier in eventfd_poll
would suggest. In fact, the read barrier, besides lacking a comment, is
not paired in any obvious manner with another read barrier, and it is
pointless because it is sitting between a write (deep in poll_wait) and
the read of ctx->count. The read barrier is acting just as a compiler
barrier, for which we can use READ_ONCE instead. This is what the code
change in this patch does.
The documentation change is just as important, however. The question,
posed by Andrea Arcangeli, is then why the thing is safe on
architectures where spin_unlock does not imply a store-load memory
barrier. The answer is that it's safe because writes of ctx->count use
the same lock as poll_wait, and hence an acquire barrier implicit in
poll_wait provides the necessary synchronization between eventfd_poll
and callers of wake_up_locked_poll. This is sort of mentioned in the
commit message with respect to eventfd_ctx_read ("eventfd_read is
similar, it will do a single decrement with the lock held") but it
applies to all other callers too. It's tricky enough that it should be
documented in the code.
Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@redhat.com>
Cc: Chris Mason <clm@fb.com>
Cc: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
This patch fix typos found in Documentation/filesystems.xml,
DocBook/filesystems/API-eventfd-signal.html, and
DocBook/filesystems.aux.xml
These files are generated from comments within the source,
so I had to fix typos in fs/eventfd.c
Signed-off-by: Masanari Iida <standby24x7@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
The spinlock in eventfd_poll is trying to protect the count of events so
it can decide if it should return POLLIN, POLLERR, or POLLOUT. But,
because of the way we drop the lock after calling poll_wait, and drop it
again before returning, we have the same pile of races with the lock as
we do with a single read of ctx->count().
This replaces the lock with a read barrier and single read.
eventfd_write does a single bump of ctx->count, so this should not add
new races with adding events. eventfd_read is similar, it will do a
single decrement with the lock held, and so we're making the race with
concurrent readers slightly larger.
This spinlock is the top CPU user in kernel code during one of our
workloads. Removing it gives us a ~2% boost.
[arnd@arndb.de: avoid unused variable warning]
[dan.carpenter@oracle.com: type bug in eventfd_poll()]
Signed-off-by: Chris Mason <clm@fb.com>
Cc: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Signed-off-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Signed-off-by: Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@oracle.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
seq_printf functions shouldn't really check the return value.
Checking seq_has_overflowed() occasionally is used instead.
Update vfs documentation.
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/p/e37e6e7b76acbdcc3bb4ab2a57c8f8ca1ae11b9a.1412031505.git.joe@perches.com
Cc: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
Cc: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Signed-off-by: Joe Perches <joe@perches.com>
[ did a few clean ups ]
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
eventfd_ctx->count is an __u64 counter which is allowed to reach
ULLONG_MAX. eventfd_write() adds a __u64 value to "count", but the kernel
side eventfd_signal() only adds an int value to it. Make them consistent.
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: update interface documentation]
Signed-off-by: Sha Zhengju <handai.szj@taobao.com>
Cc: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
For files only using THIS_MODULE and/or EXPORT_SYMBOL, map
them onto including export.h -- or if the file isn't even
using those, then just delete the include. Fix up any implicit
include dependencies that were being masked by module.h along
the way.
Signed-off-by: Paul Gortmaker <paul.gortmaker@windriver.com>
All file_operations should get a .llseek operation so we can make
nonseekable_open the default for future file operations without a
.llseek pointer.
The three cases that we can automatically detect are no_llseek, seq_lseek
and default_llseek. For cases where we can we can automatically prove that
the file offset is always ignored, we use noop_llseek, which maintains
the current behavior of not returning an error from a seek.
New drivers should normally not use noop_llseek but instead use no_llseek
and call nonseekable_open at open time. Existing drivers can be converted
to do the same when the maintainer knows for certain that no user code
relies on calling seek on the device file.
The generated code is often incorrectly indented and right now contains
comments that clarify for each added line why a specific variant was
chosen. In the version that gets submitted upstream, the comments will
be gone and I will manually fix the indentation, because there does not
seem to be a way to do that using coccinelle.
Some amount of new code is currently sitting in linux-next that should get
the same modifications, which I will do at the end of the merge window.
Many thanks to Julia Lawall for helping me learn to write a semantic
patch that does all this.
===== begin semantic patch =====
// This adds an llseek= method to all file operations,
// as a preparation for making no_llseek the default.
//
// The rules are
// - use no_llseek explicitly if we do nonseekable_open
// - use seq_lseek for sequential files
// - use default_llseek if we know we access f_pos
// - use noop_llseek if we know we don't access f_pos,
// but we still want to allow users to call lseek
//
@ open1 exists @
identifier nested_open;
@@
nested_open(...)
{
<+...
nonseekable_open(...)
...+>
}
@ open exists@
identifier open_f;
identifier i, f;
identifier open1.nested_open;
@@
int open_f(struct inode *i, struct file *f)
{
<+...
(
nonseekable_open(...)
|
nested_open(...)
)
...+>
}
@ read disable optional_qualifier exists @
identifier read_f;
identifier f, p, s, off;
type ssize_t, size_t, loff_t;
expression E;
identifier func;
@@
ssize_t read_f(struct file *f, char *p, size_t s, loff_t *off)
{
<+...
(
*off = E
|
*off += E
|
func(..., off, ...)
|
E = *off
)
...+>
}
@ read_no_fpos disable optional_qualifier exists @
identifier read_f;
identifier f, p, s, off;
type ssize_t, size_t, loff_t;
@@
ssize_t read_f(struct file *f, char *p, size_t s, loff_t *off)
{
... when != off
}
@ write @
identifier write_f;
identifier f, p, s, off;
type ssize_t, size_t, loff_t;
expression E;
identifier func;
@@
ssize_t write_f(struct file *f, const char *p, size_t s, loff_t *off)
{
<+...
(
*off = E
|
*off += E
|
func(..., off, ...)
|
E = *off
)
...+>
}
@ write_no_fpos @
identifier write_f;
identifier f, p, s, off;
type ssize_t, size_t, loff_t;
@@
ssize_t write_f(struct file *f, const char *p, size_t s, loff_t *off)
{
... when != off
}
@ fops0 @
identifier fops;
@@
struct file_operations fops = {
...
};
@ has_llseek depends on fops0 @
identifier fops0.fops;
identifier llseek_f;
@@
struct file_operations fops = {
...
.llseek = llseek_f,
...
};
@ has_read depends on fops0 @
identifier fops0.fops;
identifier read_f;
@@
struct file_operations fops = {
...
.read = read_f,
...
};
@ has_write depends on fops0 @
identifier fops0.fops;
identifier write_f;
@@
struct file_operations fops = {
...
.write = write_f,
...
};
@ has_open depends on fops0 @
identifier fops0.fops;
identifier open_f;
@@
struct file_operations fops = {
...
.open = open_f,
...
};
// use no_llseek if we call nonseekable_open
////////////////////////////////////////////
@ nonseekable1 depends on !has_llseek && has_open @
identifier fops0.fops;
identifier nso ~= "nonseekable_open";
@@
struct file_operations fops = {
... .open = nso, ...
+.llseek = no_llseek, /* nonseekable */
};
@ nonseekable2 depends on !has_llseek @
identifier fops0.fops;
identifier open.open_f;
@@
struct file_operations fops = {
... .open = open_f, ...
+.llseek = no_llseek, /* open uses nonseekable */
};
// use seq_lseek for sequential files
/////////////////////////////////////
@ seq depends on !has_llseek @
identifier fops0.fops;
identifier sr ~= "seq_read";
@@
struct file_operations fops = {
... .read = sr, ...
+.llseek = seq_lseek, /* we have seq_read */
};
// use default_llseek if there is a readdir
///////////////////////////////////////////
@ fops1 depends on !has_llseek && !nonseekable1 && !nonseekable2 && !seq @
identifier fops0.fops;
identifier readdir_e;
@@
// any other fop is used that changes pos
struct file_operations fops = {
... .readdir = readdir_e, ...
+.llseek = default_llseek, /* readdir is present */
};
// use default_llseek if at least one of read/write touches f_pos
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
@ fops2 depends on !fops1 && !has_llseek && !nonseekable1 && !nonseekable2 && !seq @
identifier fops0.fops;
identifier read.read_f;
@@
// read fops use offset
struct file_operations fops = {
... .read = read_f, ...
+.llseek = default_llseek, /* read accesses f_pos */
};
@ fops3 depends on !fops1 && !fops2 && !has_llseek && !nonseekable1 && !nonseekable2 && !seq @
identifier fops0.fops;
identifier write.write_f;
@@
// write fops use offset
struct file_operations fops = {
... .write = write_f, ...
+ .llseek = default_llseek, /* write accesses f_pos */
};
// Use noop_llseek if neither read nor write accesses f_pos
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
@ fops4 depends on !fops1 && !fops2 && !fops3 && !has_llseek && !nonseekable1 && !nonseekable2 && !seq @
identifier fops0.fops;
identifier read_no_fpos.read_f;
identifier write_no_fpos.write_f;
@@
// write fops use offset
struct file_operations fops = {
...
.write = write_f,
.read = read_f,
...
+.llseek = noop_llseek, /* read and write both use no f_pos */
};
@ depends on has_write && !has_read && !fops1 && !fops2 && !has_llseek && !nonseekable1 && !nonseekable2 && !seq @
identifier fops0.fops;
identifier write_no_fpos.write_f;
@@
struct file_operations fops = {
... .write = write_f, ...
+.llseek = noop_llseek, /* write uses no f_pos */
};
@ depends on has_read && !has_write && !fops1 && !fops2 && !has_llseek && !nonseekable1 && !nonseekable2 && !seq @
identifier fops0.fops;
identifier read_no_fpos.read_f;
@@
struct file_operations fops = {
... .read = read_f, ...
+.llseek = noop_llseek, /* read uses no f_pos */
};
@ depends on !has_read && !has_write && !fops1 && !fops2 && !has_llseek && !nonseekable1 && !nonseekable2 && !seq @
identifier fops0.fops;
@@
struct file_operations fops = {
...
+.llseek = noop_llseek, /* no read or write fn */
};
===== End semantic patch =====
Signed-off-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Cc: Julia Lawall <julia@diku.dk>
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>
percpu.h is included by sched.h and module.h and thus ends up being
included when building most .c files. percpu.h includes slab.h which
in turn includes gfp.h making everything defined by the two files
universally available and complicating inclusion dependencies.
percpu.h -> slab.h dependency is about to be removed. Prepare for
this change by updating users of gfp and slab facilities include those
headers directly instead of assuming availability. As this conversion
needs to touch large number of source files, the following script is
used as the basis of conversion.
http://userweb.kernel.org/~tj/misc/slabh-sweep.py
The script does the followings.
* Scan files for gfp and slab usages and update includes such that
only the necessary includes are there. ie. if only gfp is used,
gfp.h, if slab is used, slab.h.
* When the script inserts a new include, it looks at the include
blocks and try to put the new include such that its order conforms
to its surrounding. It's put in the include block which contains
core kernel includes, in the same order that the rest are ordered -
alphabetical, Christmas tree, rev-Xmas-tree or at the end if there
doesn't seem to be any matching order.
* If the script can't find a place to put a new include (mostly
because the file doesn't have fitting include block), it prints out
an error message indicating which .h file needs to be added to the
file.
The conversion was done in the following steps.
1. The initial automatic conversion of all .c files updated slightly
over 4000 files, deleting around 700 includes and adding ~480 gfp.h
and ~3000 slab.h inclusions. The script emitted errors for ~400
files.
2. Each error was manually checked. Some didn't need the inclusion,
some needed manual addition while adding it to implementation .h or
embedding .c file was more appropriate for others. This step added
inclusions to around 150 files.
3. The script was run again and the output was compared to the edits
from #2 to make sure no file was left behind.
4. Several build tests were done and a couple of problems were fixed.
e.g. lib/decompress_*.c used malloc/free() wrappers around slab
APIs requiring slab.h to be added manually.
5. The script was run on all .h files but without automatically
editing them as sprinkling gfp.h and slab.h inclusions around .h
files could easily lead to inclusion dependency hell. Most gfp.h
inclusion directives were ignored as stuff from gfp.h was usually
wildly available and often used in preprocessor macros. Each
slab.h inclusion directive was examined and added manually as
necessary.
6. percpu.h was updated not to include slab.h.
7. Build test were done on the following configurations and failures
were fixed. CONFIG_GCOV_KERNEL was turned off for all tests (as my
distributed build env didn't work with gcov compiles) and a few
more options had to be turned off depending on archs to make things
build (like ipr on powerpc/64 which failed due to missing writeq).
* x86 and x86_64 UP and SMP allmodconfig and a custom test config.
* powerpc and powerpc64 SMP allmodconfig
* sparc and sparc64 SMP allmodconfig
* ia64 SMP allmodconfig
* s390 SMP allmodconfig
* alpha SMP allmodconfig
* um on x86_64 SMP allmodconfig
8. percpu.h modifications were reverted so that it could be applied as
a separate patch and serve as bisection point.
Given the fact that I had only a couple of failures from tests on step
6, I'm fairly confident about the coverage of this conversion patch.
If there is a breakage, it's likely to be something in one of the arch
headers which should be easily discoverable easily on most builds of
the specific arch.
Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Guess-its-ok-by: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
Cc: Lee Schermerhorn <Lee.Schermerhorn@hp.com>
KVM needs a wait to atomically remove themselves from the eventfd ->poll()
wait queue head, in order to handle correctly their IRQfd deassign
operation.
This patch introduces such API, plus a way to read an eventfd from its
context.
Signed-off-by: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Signed-off-by: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
It seems a couple places such as arch/ia64/kernel/perfmon.c and
drivers/infiniband/core/uverbs_main.c could use anon_inode_getfile()
instead of a private pseudo-fs + alloc_file(), if only there were a way
to get a read-only file. So provide this by having anon_inode_getfile()
create a read-only file if we pass O_RDONLY in flags.
Signed-off-by: Roland Dreier <rolandd@cisco.com>
Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Split the anonfd interface into a bare file pointer creation one, and a
file pointer creation plus install one.
There are cases, like the usage of eventfds inside other kernel
interfaces, where the file pointer created by anonfd needs to be used
inside the initialization of other structures.
As it is right now, as soon as anon_inode_getfd() returns, the kenrle can
race with userspace closing the newly installed file descriptor.
This patch, while keeping the old anon_inode_getfd(), introduces a new
anon_inode_getfile() (whose services are reused in anon_inode_getfd())
that allows to split the file creation phase and the fd install one.
Once all the kernel structures are initialized, the code can call the
proper fd_install().
Gregory manifested the need for something like this inside KVM.
Signed-off-by: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Cc: Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: James Morris <jmorris@namei.org>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>
Cc: Gregory Haskins <ghaskins@novell.com>
Acked-by: Serge Hallyn <serue@us.ibm.com>
Acked-by: Roland Dreier <rolandd@cisco.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Change the eventfd interface to de-couple the eventfd memory context, from
the file pointer instance.
Without such change, there is no clean way to racely free handle the
POLLHUP event sent when the last instance of the file* goes away. Also,
now the internal eventfd APIs are using the eventfd context instead of the
file*.
This patch is required by KVM's IRQfd code, which is still under
development.
Signed-off-by: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Cc: Gregory Haskins <ghaskins@novell.com>
Cc: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au>
Cc: Benjamin LaHaise <bcrl@kvack.org>
Cc: Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
lguest wants to attach eventfds to guest notifications, and lguest is
usually a module.
Signed-off-by: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au>
To: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Introduce keyed event wakeups inside the eventfd code.
Signed-off-by: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Cc: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Cc: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
Cc: William Lee Irwin III <wli@movementarian.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
People started using eventfd in a semaphore-like way where before they
were using pipes.
That is, counter-based resource access. Where a "wait()" returns
immediately by decrementing the counter by one, if counter is greater than
zero. Otherwise will wait. And where a "post(count)" will add count to
the counter releasing the appropriate amount of waiters. If eventfd the
"post" (write) part is fine, while the "wait" (read) does not dequeue 1,
but the whole counter value.
The problem with eventfd is that a read() on the fd returns and wipes the
whole counter, making the use of it as semaphore a little bit more
cumbersome. You can do a read() followed by a write() of COUNTER-1, but
IMO it's pretty easy and cheap to make this work w/out extra steps. This
patch introduces a new eventfd flag that tells eventfd to only dequeue 1
from the counter, allowing simple read/write to make it behave like a
semaphore. Simple test here:
http://www.xmailserver.org/eventfd-sem.c
To be back-compatible with earlier kernels, userspace applications should
probe for the availability of this feature via
#ifdef EFD_SEMAPHORE
fd = eventfd2 (CNT, EFD_SEMAPHORE);
if (fd == -1 && errno == EINVAL)
<fallback>
#else
<fallback>
#endif
Signed-off-by: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Cc: <linux-api@vger.kernel.org>
Tested-by: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
Cc: Ulrich Drepper <drepper@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
This patch adds test that ensure the boundary conditions for the various
constants introduced in the previous patches is met. No code is generated.
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix alpha]
Signed-off-by: Ulrich Drepper <drepper@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@googlemail.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
This patch adds the new eventfd2 syscall. It extends the old eventfd
syscall by one parameter which is meant to hold a flag value. In this
patch the only flag support is EFD_CLOEXEC which causes the close-on-exec
flag for the returned file descriptor to be set.
A new name EFD_CLOEXEC is introduced which in this implementation must
have the same value as O_CLOEXEC.
The following test must be adjusted for architectures other than x86 and
x86-64 and in case the syscall numbers changed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/syscall.h>
#ifndef __NR_eventfd2
# ifdef __x86_64__
# define __NR_eventfd2 290
# elif defined __i386__
# define __NR_eventfd2 328
# else
# error "need __NR_eventfd2"
# endif
#endif
#define EFD_CLOEXEC O_CLOEXEC
int
main (void)
{
int fd = syscall (__NR_eventfd2, 1, 0);
if (fd == -1)
{
puts ("eventfd2(0) failed");
return 1;
}
int coe = fcntl (fd, F_GETFD);
if (coe == -1)
{
puts ("fcntl failed");
return 1;
}
if (coe & FD_CLOEXEC)
{
puts ("eventfd2(0) sets close-on-exec flag");
return 1;
}
close (fd);
fd = syscall (__NR_eventfd2, 1, EFD_CLOEXEC);
if (fd == -1)
{
puts ("eventfd2(EFD_CLOEXEC) failed");
return 1;
}
coe = fcntl (fd, F_GETFD);
if (coe == -1)
{
puts ("fcntl failed");
return 1;
}
if ((coe & FD_CLOEXEC) == 0)
{
puts ("eventfd2(EFD_CLOEXEC) does not set close-on-exec flag");
return 1;
}
close (fd);
puts ("OK");
return 0;
}
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: add sys_ni stub]
Signed-off-by: Ulrich Drepper <drepper@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@googlemail.com>
Cc: <linux-arch@vger.kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
This patch just extends the anon_inode_getfd interface to take an additional
parameter with a flag value. The flag value is passed on to
get_unused_fd_flags in anticipation for a use with the O_CLOEXEC flag.
No actual semantic changes here, the changed callers all pass 0 for now.
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: KVM fix]
Signed-off-by: Ulrich Drepper <drepper@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@googlemail.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
a) none of the callers even looks at inode or file returned by anon_inode_getfd()
b) any caller that would try to look at those would be racy, since by the time
it returns we might have raced with close() from another thread and that
file would be pining for fjords.
Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Every file should include the headers containing the prototypes for its global
functions (in this case sys_eventfd()).
Signed-off-by: Adrian Bunk <bunk@kernel.org>
Cc: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
The eventfd was using the unlocked waitqueue operations, but it was
using a different lock, so poll_wait() would race with it.
This makes eventfd directly use the waitqueue lock.
Signed-off-by: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
This is a very simple and light file descriptor, that can be used as event
wait/dispatch by userspace (both wait and dispatch) and by the kernel
(dispatch only). It can be used instead of pipe(2) in all cases where those
would simply be used to signal events. Their kernel overhead is much lower
than pipes, and they do not consume two fds. When used in the kernel, it can
offer an fd-bridge to enable, for example, functionalities like KAIO or
syslets/threadlets to signal to an fd the completion of certain operations.
But more in general, an eventfd can be used by the kernel to signal readiness,
in a POSIX poll/select way, of interfaces that would otherwise be incompatible
with it. The API is:
int eventfd(unsigned int count);
The eventfd API accepts an initial "count" parameter, and returns an eventfd
fd. It supports poll(2) (POLLIN, POLLOUT, POLLERR), read(2) and write(2).
The POLLIN flag is raised when the internal counter is greater than zero.
The POLLOUT flag is raised when at least a value of "1" can be written to the
internal counter.
The POLLERR flag is raised when an overflow in the counter value is detected.
The write(2) operation can never overflow the counter, since it blocks (unless
O_NONBLOCK is set, in which case -EAGAIN is returned).
But the eventfd_signal() function can do it, since it's supposed to not sleep
during its operation.
The read(2) function reads the __u64 counter value, and reset the internal
value to zero. If the value read is equal to (__u64) -1, an overflow happened
on the internal counter (due to 2^64 eventfd_signal() posts that has never
been retired - unlickely, but possible).
The write(2) call writes an __u64 count value, and adds it to the current
counter. The eventfd fd supports O_NONBLOCK also.
On the kernel side, we have:
struct file *eventfd_fget(int fd);
int eventfd_signal(struct file *file, unsigned int n);
The eventfd_fget() should be called to get a struct file* from an eventfd fd
(this is an fget() + check of f_op being an eventfd fops pointer).
The kernel can then call eventfd_signal() every time it wants to post an event
to userspace. The eventfd_signal() function can be called from any context.
An eventfd() simple test and bench is available here:
http://www.xmailserver.org/eventfd-bench.c
This is the eventfd-based version of pipetest-4 (pipe(2) based):
http://www.xmailserver.org/pipetest-4.c
Not that performance matters much in the eventfd case, but eventfd-bench
shows almost as double as performance than pipetest-4.
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix i386 build]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: add sys_eventfd to sys_ni.c]
Signed-off-by: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
