Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754863Ab0HXKky (ORCPT ); Tue, 24 Aug 2010 06:40:54 -0400 Received: from e23smtp07.au.ibm.com ([202.81.31.140]:44592 "EHLO e23smtp07.au.ibm.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754069Ab0HXKkw (ORCPT ); Tue, 24 Aug 2010 06:40:52 -0400 From: "Aneesh Kumar K. V" To: Neil Brown Cc: Andreas Dilger , Al Viro , Christoph Hellwig , "adilger\@sun.com" , "corbet\@lwn.net" , "npiggin\@kernel.dk" , "hooanon05\@yahoo.co.jp" , "bfields\@fieldses.org" , "miklos\@szeredi.hu" , "linux-fsdevel\@vger.kernel.org" , "sfrench\@us.ibm.com" , "philippe.deniel\@CEA.FR" , "linux-kernel\@vger.kernel.org" Subject: Re: [PATCH -V18 04/13] vfs: Allow handle based open on symlinks In-Reply-To: <20100823115247.1f38c154@notabene> References: <1282269097-26166-1-git-send-email-aneesh.kumar@linux.vnet.ibm.com> <1282269097-26166-5-git-send-email-aneesh.kumar@linux.vnet.ibm.com> <20100820083057.GA10039@infradead.org> <20100820195303.20b17210@notabene> <20100820115135.GQ31363@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> <20100821100900.4b15fe08@notabene> <17761610-AFA9-4BB5-AF62-CD54D67F5C79@oracle.com> <20100823090604.6c735c80@notabene> <20100823115247.1f38c154@notabene> User-Agent: Notmuch/0.3.1-58-g6607fd6 (http://notmuchmail.org) Emacs/24.0.50.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:10:42 +0530 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 4081 Lines: 91 On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:52:47 +1000, Neil Brown wrote: > On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 06:54:03 +0530 > "Aneesh Kumar K. V" wrote: > > > On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 09:06:04 +1000, Neil Brown wrote: > > > On Sat, 21 Aug 2010 01:13:52 -0600 > > > Andreas Dilger wrote: > > > > > > > On 2010-08-20, at 18:09, Neil Brown wrote: > > > > > How about a new AT flag: AT_FILE_HANDLE > > > > > > > > > > Meaning is that the 'dirfd' is used only to identify a filesystem (vfsmnt) and > > > > > the 'name' pointer actually points to a filehandle fragment interpreted in > > > > > that filesystem. > > > > > > > > > > One problem is that there is no way to pass the length... > > > > > Options: > > > > > fragment is at most 64 bytes nul padded at the end > > > > > fragment is hex encoded and nul terminated > > > > > ?? > > > > > > > > > > I think I prefer the hex encoding, but I'm hoping someone else has a better > > > > > idea. > > > > > > > > That makes it ugly for the kernel to stringify and parse the file handles. > > > > > > We already parse filenames into components separated by '/'. Is HEX decoding > > > that much more ugly. > > > > > > Filehandles are currently passed between the kernel and mountd as HEX > > > strings, so at least there is some precedent. > > > > > > > > > > > How about for AT_FILE_HANDLE THE FIRST __u32 (maybe with an extra __u32 for alignment) is the length and the rest of the binary file handle follows this? In fact, doesn't the handle itself already encode the length in the header? > > > > > > That part of a filehandle that nfsd gives to the filesystem is one byte out > > > of a 4-byte header, plus the tail of the filehandle after the part that > > > identifies the filesystem. > > > This 'one byte' does imply the length, but it doesn't necessarily encode it. > > > Rather it is a 'type'. So it cannot really be used to determine the length > > > at the point when the filehandle would need to be copied from userspace into > > > the kernel. > > > > > > > > > I don't think there is any precedent for passing a 4-byte length followed by > > > a binary string, while there is plenty of precedent for passing a > > > nul-terminated ASCII string. > > > > > > [[ Following this approach I would like to avoid any filehandle-specific > > > syscalls altogether. > > > Just use a *at syscall with AT_FILE_HANDLE for filehandle lookup, and use > > > getxattr('system:linux.file_handle') to get the filehandle for a given path. > > > > > > Ofcourse we would need to at *at versions of the *xattr syscalls, but that is > > > probably a good idea anyway. > > > ]] > > > > There are at* syscalls that doesn't take the additional flags as the > > argument, like openat, readlinkat. How will handle based open and > > readlink work with the above interface ? > > > > Bother... you are right. > > I had remembered that at the time that all that *at calls were added there was > discussion about how you always need some flags, particularly in the context > of adding O_CLOEXEC and (I thought) a flag to allow non-sequential allocation > of fds. > I had thought that they all got 'flags' arguments as a result, but it seems > not. > For openat you could squeeze something into the current 'flags' arg > (O_FILE_HANDLE), but for readlinkat, symlinkat at least there is no such > option. Sad really. > IMHO that is really bad overloading of flags value. I also find hex encoded handle in pathname argument of *at syscalls confusing. The above discussion also hint that we would need a new syscall for open, readlink and setxattr, So how about me posting the new series which remove open on symlink patch and add a bunch of syscalls to allow operation on symlinks based on handle ? -aneesh -- 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/