Linus Torvalds wrote: > and by releasing that lock it actually seems to break all the buffering > guarantees! What can happen is: > > CPU1 (or thread1 with PREEMPTION) > CPU2 (or thread2 with PREEMPTION) > > flush_to_ldisc() > ... > spin_lock_irqsave(..) > .. get one buffer.. > spin_unlock_irqrestore(..); > > <- PREEMPTION POINT, anything can happen -> > <- more buffers can be added, etc -> > > flush_to_ldisc() > spin_lock_irqsave(..) > .. get second buffer.. > spin_unlock_irqrestore(..); > ->receive_buf(tty, char_buf, ... > spin_lock_irqrestore(..) > .. all done .. > > > ->receive_buf(tty, char_buf, ... > spin_lock_irqrestore(...) > > Notice how the "->receive_buf()" calls were done out of order, even if the > data was perfectly in-order in the buffers. The buffer head is removed and set to null just before the flushing loop. If flush_to_ldisc() is reentered with the head set to null, nothing is done. New buffers can be added where you say, but they are added to the tail. So the order of flushed data is retained. This existing mechanism essentially does the same thing as your patch. -- Paul Fulghum MicroGate Systems, Ltd. =Customer Driven, by Design= (800)444-1982 (512)345-7791 (Direct) (512)343-9046 (Fax) Central Time Zone (GMT -5h) www.microgate.com -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kernel-testers" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
