Re: module changes

[Mikael Pettersson <mikpe@user.it.uu.se>]

Rusty Russell writes:
 > In message <20030217213221.3103.qmail@eklektix.com> you write:
 > > I had a quick question: is the inability to declare per-CPU variables in
 > > modules going to be permanent?
 > 
 > <sigh>
 > 
 > I'd really like to fix it, but that's *hard*.
 > 
 > <think think think, ask Paulus>
 > 
 > There might be a neater way, and there's definitely a more
 > space-efficient way, but this is a start (the wastage is small as long
 > as there are only a few per-cpu vars, as there are at the moment).
 > 
 > Rusty.
 > --
 >   Anyone who quotes me in their sig is an idiot. -- Rusty Russell.
 > 
 > Name: per-cpu support inside modules
 > Author: Rusty Russell
 > Status: Tested on 2.5.62
 > 
 > D: This adds percpu support for modules.  A module cannot have more
 > D: percpu data than the base kernel does (on my kernel 5636 bytes).

This limitation is quite horrible.

Does the implementation have to be perfect? The per_cpu API can easily
be simulated using good old NR_CPUS arrays:

#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE >= KERNEL_VERSION(2,5,8) && !defined(MODULE)
#include <linux/percpu.h>	/* why doesn't this work for modules? */
#else
/* Simulate per_cpu() for older kernels or modular builds. */
#define DEFINE_PER_CPU(type, name) \
	__typeof__(type) name[NR_CPUS] __cacheline_aligned
#define per_cpu(var, cpu)	((var)[(cpu)])
#endif

Yes it wastes space. Big deal. Rather that than arbitrary limitations.

/Mikael