Linux kernel development

Aristeu Rozanski | 18 Jul 2012 20:52

[PATCH v4 0/3] cgroup: add xattr support

This series are a refreshed version of a patchset submitted by Li Zefan back
in march:
	https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/3/1/13

With Li's permission, I refreshed the patches to apply over the latest upstream
and added the modifications suggested by others in the thread:
- using a mount option instead of config option to enable the xattr support
- reinitialize the list in kmem_xattrs_free()
- renamed functions to simple_xattr_*()

v4:
- implemented requested changes by Tejun Heo in patch #2

Signed-off-by: Li Zefan <lizefan <at> huawei.com>
Signed-off-by: Aristeu Rozanski <aris <at> redhat.com>

headers

Aristeu Rozanski | 18 Jul 2012 20:52

[PATCH v4 1/3] xattr: extract simple_xattr code from tmpfs

From: Li Zefan <lizefan <at> huawei.com>

Extract in-memory xattr APIs from tmpfs. Will be used by cgroup.

$ size vmlinux.o
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
4658782  880729 5195032 10734543         a3cbcf vmlinux.o
$ size vmlinux.o
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
4658957  880729 5195032 10734718         a3cc7e vmlinux.o

v5:
- no changes
v4:
- move simple_xattrs_free() to fs/xattr.c
v3:
- in kmem_xattrs_free(), reinitialize the list
- use simple_xattr_* prefix
- introduce simple_xattr_add() to prevent direct list usage

Signed-off-by: Li Zefan <lizefan <at> huawei.com>
Signed-off-by: Aristeu Rozanski <aris <at> redhat.com>

---
 fs/xattr.c               |  200 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 include/linux/shmem_fs.h |    3 
 include/linux/xattr.h    |   25 +++++
 mm/shmem.c               |  171 +++-------------------------------------
 4 files changed, 240 insertions(+), 159 deletions(-)

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headers

Aristeu Rozanski | 18 Jul 2012 20:52

[PATCH v4 3/3] cgroup: add xattr support

From: Li Zefan <lizefan <at> huawei.com>

This is one of the items in the plumber's wish list.

For use cases:

>> What would the use case be for this?
>
> Attaching meta information to services, in an easily discoverable
> way. For example, in systemd we create one cgroup for each service, and
> could then store data like the main pid of the specific service as an
> xattr on the cgroup itself. That way we'd have almost all service state
> in the cgroupfs, which would make it possible to terminate systemd and
> later restart it without losing any state information. But there's more:
> for example, some very peculiar services cannot be terminated on
> shutdown (i.e. fakeraid DM stuff) and it would be really nice if the
> services in question could just mark that on their cgroup, by setting an
> xattr. On the more desktopy side of things there are other
> possibilities: for example there are plans defining what an application
> is along the lines of a cgroup (i.e. an app being a collection of
> processes). With xattrs one could then attach an icon or human readable
> program name on the cgroup.
>
> The key idea is that this would allow attaching runtime meta information
> to cgroups and everything they model (services, apps, vms), that doesn't
> need any complex userspace infrastructure, has good access control
> (i.e. because the file system enforces that anyway, and there's the
> "trusted." xattr namespace), notifications (inotify), and can easily be
> shared among applications.
>

(Continue reading)

headers

Aristeu Rozanski | 25 Jul 2012 18:15

[PATCH v5 3/3] cgroup: add xattr support

From: Li Zefan <lizefan <at> huawei.com>

This is one of the items in the plumber's wish list.

For use cases:

>> What would the use case be for this?
>
> Attaching meta information to services, in an easily discoverable
> way. For example, in systemd we create one cgroup for each service, and
> could then store data like the main pid of the specific service as an
> xattr on the cgroup itself. That way we'd have almost all service state
> in the cgroupfs, which would make it possible to terminate systemd and
> later restart it without losing any state information. But there's more:
> for example, some very peculiar services cannot be terminated on
> shutdown (i.e. fakeraid DM stuff) and it would be really nice if the
> services in question could just mark that on their cgroup, by setting an
> xattr. On the more desktopy side of things there are other
> possibilities: for example there are plans defining what an application
> is along the lines of a cgroup (i.e. an app being a collection of
> processes). With xattrs one could then attach an icon or human readable
> program name on the cgroup.
>
> The key idea is that this would allow attaching runtime meta information
> to cgroups and everything they model (services, apps, vms), that doesn't
> need any complex userspace infrastructure, has good access control
> (i.e. because the file system enforces that anyway, and there's the
> "trusted." xattr namespace), notifications (inotify), and can easily be
> shared among applications.
>

(Continue reading)

headers

Aristeu Rozanski | 18 Jul 2012 20:52

[PATCH v4 2/3] cgroup: revise how we re-populate root directory

From: Li Zefan <lizefan <at> huawei.com>

When remounting cgroupfs with some subsystems added to it and some
removed, cgroup will remove all the files in root directory and then
re-popluate it.

What I'm doing here is, only remove files which belong to subsystems that
are to be unbinded, and only create files for newly-added subsystems.
The purpose is to have all other files untouched.

This is a preparation for cgroup xattr support.

v4:
- refactored cgroup_clear_directory() to not use cgroup_rm_file()
- instead of going thru the list of files, get the file list using the
  subsystems
- use 'subsys_mask' instead of {added,removed}_bits and made
  cgroup_populate_dir() to match the parameters with cgroup_clear_directory()
v3:
- refresh patches after recent refactoring

Signed-off-by: Li Zefan <lizefan <at> huawei.com>
Signed-off-by: Aristeu Rozanski <aris <at> redhat.com>

---
 kernel/cgroup.c |   61 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------------
 1 file changed, 48 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-)

Index: xattr/kernel/cgroup.c
===================================================================

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