Re: [PATCH 2.6] serialization of kernelcapi work

[Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>]

Armin Schindler <armin@melware.de> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 18 Mar 2004, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > I would suggest that you look at avoiding the global semaphore.  Suppose
> > someone has 64 interfaces or something.  Is that possible?  It might be
> > better to put the semaphore into struct capi_ctr so you can at least
> > process frames from separate cards in parallel.
> >
> > > Is there a better way to do user-context work serialized ?
> >
> > Not really - you've been bitten by the compulsory per-cpuness of the
> > workqueue handlers.
> >
> > You could have a standalone kernel thread or always queue the work onto CPU
> > #0 (the function to do this isn't merged, but exists).  But both these are
> > unscalable.
> >
> > So apart from moving recv_handler_lock into struct capi_ctr I can't think
> > of anything clever.
> 
> I think an atomic counter in the workqueue-function would be more efficient.
> What do you think about this?
> 
> 
> static atomic_t recv_work_count;
> 
> static void recv_handler(void *data)
> {
> 	if (atomic_inc_and_test(&recv_work_count)) {
> 		do {
> 			/* work to do */
> 		} while (!atomic_add_negative(-1, &recv_work_count));
> 	}
> }
> 
> static int __init kcapi_init(void)
> {
> 	atomic_set(&recv_work_count, -1);
> }
> 
> 
> A second call to the recv_handler() just results in an additional loop
> of the first one and the second CPU goes on with its work.

It doesn't need to be a counter - it can simply be a flag.  See how (say)
queue_work() does it.

However you are limiting things so only a single CPU can run `work to do'
at any time, same as with a semaphore.