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authorKaiGai Kohei <kaigai@ak.jp.nec.com>2006-05-13 10:14:14 +0400
committerKaiGai Kohei <kaigai@ak.jp.nec.com>2006-05-13 10:14:14 +0400
commit8b0b339d46ca0105a9936e3caa3bac80b72de7a3 (patch)
tree3849c24ba41edad67a610f4e584e41f803df23c5
parentde1f72fab35d2b6215017690c6dc27b8f4aa14bc (diff)
downloadlinux-8b0b339d46ca0105a9936e3caa3bac80b72de7a3.tar.xz
[JFFS2][XATTR] Add a description about c->xattr_sem
Add a description about the c->xattr_sem read/write semaphore into README.Locking. [3/10] jffs2-xattr-v5.1-03-append_README.Locking.patch Signed-off-by: KaiGai Kohei <kaigai@ak.jp.nec.com>
-rw-r--r--fs/jffs2/README.Locking21
1 files changed, 21 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/fs/jffs2/README.Locking b/fs/jffs2/README.Locking
index b7943439b6ec..c8f0bd64e53e 100644
--- a/fs/jffs2/README.Locking
+++ b/fs/jffs2/README.Locking
@@ -150,3 +150,24 @@ the buffer.
Ordering constraints:
Lock wbuf_sem last, after the alloc_sem or and f->sem.
+
+
+ c->xattr_sem
+ ------------
+
+This read/write semaphore protects against concurrent access to the
+xattr related objects which include stuff in superblock and ic->xref.
+In read-only path, write-semaphore is too much exclusion. It's enough
+by read-semaphore. But you must hold write-semaphore when updating,
+creating or deleting any xattr related object.
+
+Once xattr_sem released, there would be no assurance for the existence
+of those objects. Thus, a series of processes is often required to retry,
+when updating such a object is necessary under holding read semaphore.
+For example, do_jffs2_getxattr() holds read-semaphore to scan xref and
+xdatum at first. But it retries this process with holding write-semaphore
+after release read-semaphore, if it's necessary to load name/value pair
+from medium.
+
+Ordering constraints:
+ Lock xattr_sem last, after the alloc_sem.