Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S264265AbUIAIeo (ORCPT ); Wed, 1 Sep 2004 04:34:44 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S264213AbUIAIen (ORCPT ); Wed, 1 Sep 2004 04:34:43 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([66.187.233.31]:40372 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S264265AbUIAIa2 (ORCPT ); Wed, 1 Sep 2004 04:30:28 -0400 Subject: Re: f_ops flag to speed up compatible ioctls in linux kernel From: Arjan van de Ven Reply-To: arjanv@redhat.com To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Cc: discuss@x86-64.org In-Reply-To: <20040901072245.GF13749@mellanox.co.il> References: <20040901072245.GF13749@mellanox.co.il> Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="=-82PY/ieQzQxAP/qKF+4A" Organization: Red Hat UK Message-Id: <1094027417.2947.1.camel@laptop.fenrus.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.4.6 (1.4.6-2) Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 10:30:18 +0200 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1711 Lines: 51 --=-82PY/ieQzQxAP/qKF+4A Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Wed, 2004-09-01 at 09:22, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote: > Hello! > Currently, on the x86_64 architecture, its quite tricky to make > a char device ioctl work for an x86 executables. > In particular, > 1. there is a requirement that ioctl number is unique - > which is hard to guarantee especially for out of kernel modules well... external modules thus should be really really careful with ioctls then and not embrace and extend too much but just use existing ones instead when reasonable > 2. there's a performance huge overhead for each compat call - there's > a hash lookup in a global hash inside a lock_kernel - > and I think compat performance *is* important. such is life >=20 > Further, adding a command to the ioctl suddenly requires changing > two places - registration code and ioctl itself. adding ioctls SHOULD be painful. Really painful. It's similar to adding syscalls; you'll have to keep compatibility basically forever so adding should not be an easy thing. --=-82PY/ieQzQxAP/qKF+4A Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQBBNYiZxULwo51rQBIRAkCuAJ9/sLhd3za+1ls6HEIIcFBmvSF3FwCgiVMl X1ok3gBsQ0jGTTYdHT/VPbs= =tR34 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=-82PY/ieQzQxAP/qKF+4A-- - 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/