Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Fri, 14 Feb 2003 20:07:44 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Fri, 14 Feb 2003 20:07:43 -0500 Received: from x35.xmailserver.org ([208.129.208.51]:55173 "EHLO x35.xmailserver.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Fri, 14 Feb 2003 20:06:52 -0500 X-AuthUser: davidel@xmailserver.org Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 17:23:54 -0800 (PST) From: Davide Libenzi X-X-Sender: davide@blue1.dev.mcafeelabs.com To: Matti Aarnio cc: Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: Synchronous signal delivery.. In-Reply-To: <20030215000628.GB1073@mea-ext.zmailer.org> Message-ID: References:

<20030215000628.GB1073@mea-ext.zmailer.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1839 Lines: 48 On Sat, 15 Feb 2003, Matti Aarnio wrote: > On Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 04:00:03PM -0800, Davide Libenzi wrote: > > On Thu, 13 Feb 2003, Linus Torvalds wrote: > .... > > > > > One of the reasons for the "flags" field (which is not unused) was because > > > > > I thought it might have extensions for things like alarms etc. > > > > I was thinking more like : > > > > > > > > int timerfd(int timeout, int oneshot); > > > > > > It could be a separate system call, ... > > > > I would personally like it a lot to have timer events available on > > pollable fds. Am I alone in this ? > > Somehow all this idea has a feeling of long established > Linux kernel facility called: netlink > > It can send varying messages to userspace via a file-handle, and is > pollable. Originally that is for network codes, and therefore it > already has protocol capable to handle multiple different formats, > handle queue saturation, etc. > > Do we need new syscall(s) ? Could it all be done with netlink ? The ( evntually ) new syscall do not have to implement anything special about queue and message delivery, the f_op->poll() support will be sufficent to have them working with select/poll/epoll. About netlink, I personally find it quite confusing with respect of simple syscalls like : int sigfd(...); int timerfd(...); Netlink is quite powerfull because of its generic message passing infrastructure, that is IMHO overkilling when you simply have to receive one timer/signal event. I personally do not like the idea of multiplexing APIs, expecially ones that did not born with that purposes. - Davide - 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/