[linux-cifs-client] Re: [PATCH] cifs: remove dnotify thread code

Commit Message

Steve French Jan. 9, 2009, 4:18 p.m. UTC

On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 5:33 AM, Jeff Layton <[e-mail]> wrote:
> On Thu, 8 Jan 2009 21:32:09 -0600
> "Steve French" <[e-mail]> wrote:
> This patch doesn't remove any capability of the current code. It just
> gets rid of this kthread that doesn't do anything useful. There's
> nothing stopping us from putting it back later once we have working dir
> notification, but until then it's just doing unnecessary wakeups.
Al's patch removes the ability for a network or cluster file system to
handle directory change notification in the future ... (AFAIK KDE,
GNOME still use this fcntl) so we won't be able to fix the fcntl to
work where it matters most (network or cluster environments) in the
future without reverting the patch.

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=6badd79bd002788aaec27b50a74ab69ef65ab8ee

Comments

Jeff Layton Jan. 9, 2009, 6:07 p.m. UTC | #1

On Fri, 9 Jan 2009 10:18:28 -0600
"Steve French" <[e-mail]> wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 5:33 AM, Jeff Layton <[e-mail]> wrote:
> > On Thu, 8 Jan 2009 21:32:09 -0600
> > "Steve French" <[e-mail]> wrote:
> > This patch doesn't remove any capability of the current code. It just
> > gets rid of this kthread that doesn't do anything useful. There's
> > nothing stopping us from putting it back later once we have working dir
> > notification, but until then it's just doing unnecessary wakeups.
> Al's patch removes the ability for a network or cluster file system to
> handle directory change notification in the future ... (AFAIK KDE,
> GNOME still use this fcntl) so we won't be able to fix the fcntl to
> work where it matters most (network or cluster environments) in the
> future without reverting the patch.
> 

Right. By "this patch", I meant the one that I sent.

Al's concerns seem valid though. You may be able to convince him to
add back in a dir_notify type interface to the VFS later but I imagine
it will need some redesign to address the problems he noted.

Patch

--- a/fs/dnotify.c
+++ b/fs/dnotify.c
@@ -115,9 +115,6 @@  int fcntl_dirnotify(int fd, struct file *filp,
unsigned long arg)
        dn->dn_next = inode->i_dnotify;
        inode->i_dnotify = dn;
        spin_unlock(&inode->i_lock);
-
-       if (filp->f_op && filp->f_op->dir_notify)
-               return filp->f_op->dir_notify(filp, arg);
        return 0;