Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754953Ab3CVXow (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 Mar 2013 19:44:52 -0400 Received: from mail-ie0-f169.google.com ([209.85.223.169]:62313 "EHLO mail-ie0-f169.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754655Ab3CVXov (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 Mar 2013 19:44:51 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <1363980558.11644.8.camel@pasglop> References: <1363865097-32764-1-git-send-email-grant.likely@secretlab.ca> <1363865097-32764-3-git-send-email-grant.likely@secretlab.ca> <1363870366.3312.1.camel@pasglop> <514C9CF1.7060505@linux.vnet.ibm.com> <1363980558.11644.8.camel@pasglop> From: Grant Likely Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2013 23:44:30 +0000 X-Google-Sender-Auth: mWZpx92fqIgtzX0_UdXpOKN3F30 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [PATCH V2 2/2] of: remove /proc/device-tree To: Benjamin Herrenschmidt Cc: Nathan Fontenot , Greg Kroah-Hartman , devicetree-discuss , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Rob Herring , David Miller Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1693 Lines: 35 On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 7:29 PM, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote: > On Fri, 2013-03-22 at 13:03 -0500, Nathan Fontenot wrote: >> We don't ever free old property values, mainly I assume since we don't keep >> reference counts and can't know when it is safe to do so. The problem I >> am starting to see on pseries is that we are getting very large properties. >> One of the biggest culprits is the property on pseries systems to describe >> the memory on the system in the device tree. These are big and getting >> bigger as memory increases, additionally this property is update every >> time memory is DLPAR added or removed from the system which can lead to >> leaving a bunch of memory that should be free'ed. >> >> Given that, is there (or has there been) any discussion on adding reference >> counts to properties in the device tree? With the myriad ways to get at >> the value of a property this may not be feasible but I would like to hear >> any thoughts from the community. > > My assumption was always that the lifetime of property values is tied > the the lifetime of the node they are in. IE, we wouldn't free a > property removed from a node but we could free all properties when > the node goes away... > > Not the best but would do... > > refcount of properties, well ... Grant, do we get kobjects for them with > the sysfs stuff ? That could do the trick... No. Kobjects are only created for the nodes. g. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/