Re: [PATCH] sched.h: increment TASK_COMM_LEN to 20 bytes

[Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>]

On Sat, 01 Jul 2006 00:46:15 -0400
Jeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org> wrote:

> Andrew Morton wrote:
> > Luben Tuikov <ltuikov@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>> We do occasionally hit task_struct.comm[] truncation, when people use
> >>> "too-long-a-name%d" for their kernel thread names.  But we seem to manage.
> >> It would be especially helpful if you want to name a task thread
> >> the NAA IEEE Registered name format (16 chars, globally unique), for things
> >> like FC, SAS, etc.  This way you can identify the task thread with
> >> the device bearing the NAA IEEE name.
> >>
> >> Currently just last character is cut off, since TASK_COMM_LEN is 15+1.
> >>
> >> I think incrementing it would be a good thing, plus other things
> >> may want to represent 8 bytes as a character array to be the name
> >> of a task thread.
> > 
> > OK, that's a reason.  Being able to map a kernel thread onto a particular
> > device is useful.
> 
> But will it wind up this way, when the does-not-exist-yet-upstream code 
> appears?
> 
> I would think it would make more sense to increase the size of the key 
> task structure only when there are justified, merged users in the kernel.
> 

Well yes - I assumed that would be happening fairly soon.  Luben?