On 24/12/19 02:41, Chen Wandun wrote:
> Use DEFINE_DEBUGFS_ATTRIBUTE rather than DEFINE_SIMPLE_ATTRIBUTE
> for debugfs files.
>
> Semantic patch information:
> Rationale: DEFINE_SIMPLE_ATTRIBUTE + debugfs_create_file()
> imposes some significant overhead as compared to
> DEFINE_DEBUGFS_ATTRIBUTE + debugfs_create_file_unsafe().
>
> Signed-off-by: Chen Wandun <chenwandun@xxxxxxxxxx>
This patch was sent probably already two or three times, and every time
I've not been able to understand what is this significant overhead.
With DEFINE_DEBUGFS_ATTRIBUTE:
- the fops member is debugfs_open_proxy_file_operations, which calls
replace_fops so that the fops->read member is debugfs_attr_read on the
opened file
- debugfs_attr_read does
ret = debugfs_file_get(dentry);
if (unlikely(ret))
return ret;
ret = simple_attr_read(file, buf, len, ppos);
debugfs_file_put(dentry);
With DEFINE_SIMPLE_ATTRIBUTE:
- the fops member is debugfs_full_proxy_open, and after
__full_proxy_fops_init fops->read is initialized to full_proxy_read
- full_proxy_read does
r = debugfs_file_get(dentry);
if (unlikely(r))
return r;
real_fops = debugfs_real_fops(filp);
r = real_fops->name(args);
debugfs_file_put(dentry);
return r;
where real_fops->name is again just simple_attr_read.
So the overhead is really just one kzalloc every time the file is opened.
I could just apply the patch, but it wouldn't solve the main issue,
which is that there is a function with a scary name
("debugfs_create_file_unsafe") that can be used in very common
circumstances (with DEFINE_DEBUGFS_ATTRIBUTE. Therefore, we could
instead fix the root cause and avoid using the scary API:
- remove from the .cocci patch the change from debugfs_create_file to
debugfs_create_file_unsafe. Only switch DEFINE_SIMPLE_ATTRIBUTE to
DEFINE_DEBUGFS_ATTRIBUTE
- change debugfs_create_file to automatically detect the "easy" case
that does not need proxying of fops; something like this:
const struct file_operations *proxy_fops;
/*
* Any struct file_operations defined by means of
* DEFINE_DEBUGFS_ATTRIBUTE() is protected against file removals
* and thus does not need proxying of read and write fops.
*/
if (!fops ||
(fops->llseek == no_llseek &&
((!fops->read && !fops->read_iter) ||
fops->read == debugfs_attr_read) &&
((!fops->write && !fops->write_iter) ||
fops->write == debugfs_attr_write) &&
!fops->poll && !fops->unlocked_ioctl)
return debugfs_create_file_unsafe(name, mode, parent,
data, fops);
/* These are not supported by __full_proxy_fops_init. */
WARN_ON_ONCE(fops->read_iter || fops->write_iter);
return __debugfs_create_file(name, mode, parent, data,
&debugfs_full_proxy_file_operations,
fops);
CCing Nicolai Stange who first introduced debugfs_create_file_unsafe.
Thanks,
Paolo
