Hi Jens, On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 9:48 AM, Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 9:05 AM, Michael Kerrisk > <mtk.manpages@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 9:01 AM, Jens Axboe <jaxboe@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>> On Thu, Jun 03 2010, Michael Kerrisk wrote: >>>> Hi Jens, >>>> >>>> On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 8:10 AM, Jens Axboe <jaxboe@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>>> > On Wed, Jun 02 2010, Michael Kerrisk wrote: >>>> >> On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 9:45 AM, Jens Axboe <axboe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>>> >> > On Thu, May 27 2010, Michael Kerrisk wrote: >>>> >> >> Jens, >>>> >> >> >>>> >> >> On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 7:56 PM, Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>>> >> >> > On Mon, May 24 2010, Michael Kerrisk wrote: >>>> >> >> >> On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 7:35 PM, Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>>> >> >> >> > On Mon, May 24 2010, Michael Kerrisk wrote: >>>> >> >> >> >> > Right, that looks like a thinko. >>>> >> >> >> >> > >>>> >> >> >> >> > I'll submit a patch changing it to bytes and the agreed API and fix this >>>> >> >> >> >> > -Eerror. Thanks for your comments and suggestions! >>>> >> >> >> >> >>>> >> >> >> >> Thanks. And of course you are welcome. (Please CC linux-api@vger on >>>> >> >> >> >> this patche (and all patches that change the API/ABI.) >>>> >> >> >> > >>>> >> >> >> > The first change is this: >>>> >> >> >> > >>>> >> >> >> > http://git.kernel.dk/?p=linux-2.6-block.git;a=commit;h=0191f8697bbdfefcd36e7b8dc3eeddfe82893e4b >>>> >> >> >> > >>>> >> >> >> > and the one dealing with the pages vs bytes API is this: >>>> >> >> >> > >>>> >> >> >> > http://git.kernel.dk/?p=linux-2.6-block.git;a=commit;h=b9598db3401282bb27b4aef77e3eee12015f7f29 >>>> >> >> >> > >>>> >> >> >> > Not tested yet, will do so before sending in of course. >>>> >> >> >> >>>> >> >> >> Eyeballing it quickly, these changes look right. >>>> >> >> > >>>> >> >> > Good, thanks. >>>> >> >> > >>>> >> >> >> Do you have some test programs you can make available? >>>> >> >> > >>>> >> >> > Actually I don't, I test it by modifying fio's splice engine to set/get >>>> >> >> > the pipe size and test the resulting transfers. >>>> >> >> >>>> >> >> An afterthought. Do there not also need to be fixes to the /proc >>>> >> >> interfaces. I don't think they were included in your revised patches. >>>> >> > >>>> >> > I think the proc part can be sanely left in pages, since it's just a >>>> >> > memory limiter. >>>> >> >>>> >> I can't see any advantage to using two different units for these >>>> >> closely related APIs, and it does seem like it could be a source of >>>> >> confusion. Similar APIs that I can think of like RLIMIT_MEMLOCK and >>>> >> shmget() SHMMAX that impose per-process memory-related limits use >>>> >> bytes. Best to be consistent, don't you think? >>>> > >>>> > But they are different interfaces. I think the 'pass in required size, >>>> > return actual size' where actual size is >= required size makes sense >>>> > for the syscall part, but for an "admin" interface it is more logical to >>>> > deal in pages. Perhaps that's just me and the average admin does not >>>> > agree. So while it's just detail, it's also an interface so has some >>>> > importance. And if there's consensus that bytes is a cleaner interface >>>> > on the proc side as well, then lets change it. >>>> >>>> I'll add one more datapoint to those that I already mentioned. >>>> RLIMIT_STACK and RLIMIT_DATA (getrlimit()) is also expressed in bytes. >>>> >>>> There was only one vaguely related limit that I could find that >>>> measured things in pages. Consider these two System V shared memory >>>> limits: >>>> >>>> SHMMAX >>>> This is the maximum size (in bytes) of a shared memory segment. >>>> >>>> SHMALL >>>> This is a system-wide limit on the total number of pages of shared memory. >>>> >>>> But in a way this almost confirms my point. SHMMAX is a limit the >>>> governs the behavior of individual processes (like your /proc file), >>>> while SHMALL is a limit that governs the behavior of the system as a >>>> whole. There is a (sort of) logic to using bytes for one and pages for >>>> the other. >>>> >>>> I think that I've said all I need to say on the topic. I'm inclined to >>>> think yours /proc file should use bytes, since it seems consistent >>>> with other simialr APIs. Others may confirm, or someone else mught >>>> have a different insight. >>> >>> I'll commit a patch to change it to bytes. >> >> Thanks Jens. > > Since I'm going to document the /proc file, it occurred to me... What > are you going to call this file now? "pipe_max_pages" no longer makes > sense. "pipe_size_ceiling" may be more expressive than simply > "pipe_max". So, I'm looking at this interface still more closely now. How about using CAP_SYS_RESOURCE, rather than the hugely overloaded CAP_SYS_ADMIN as the governor for the capability check? Again, it's about consistency. Here's what CAP_SYS_RESOURCE currently governs: CAP_SYS_RESOURCE * Use reserved space on ext2 file systems; * make ioctl(2) calls controlling ext3 journaling; * override disk quota limits; * increase resource limits (see setrlimit(2)); * override RLIMIT_NPROC resource limit; * raise msg_qbytes limit for a System V message queue above the limit in /proc/sys/kernel/msgmnb (see msgop(2) and msgctl(2)). Including the pipe size limit in this list makes sense. Cheers, Michael -- Michael Kerrisk Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/ Author of "The Linux Programming Interface" http://blog.man7.org/ -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-fsdevel" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
