Re: [linux-usb-devel] Re: Linux 2.6.16-rc3

[Alan Stern <stern@rowland.harvard.edu>]

On Wed, 15 Feb 2006, James Bottomley wrote:

> On Wed, 2006-02-15 at 11:07 -0500, Alan Stern wrote:
> > Could we perhaps make this safer and more general?
> > 
> > For instance, add to struct device a "pending puts" counter and a list
> > header (both protected by a global spinlock), and have a kernel thread
> > periodically check the list, doing put_device wherever needed.  How does
> > that sound?
> 
> That's what I've been discussing with Jens elsewhere on this list.
> However, I think what you're proposing is overly complex.  All we really
> need is for a way of flagging a kobject (or kref) so the final put will
> be in user context.  Then we can use storage within the kobject or
> device (or something else) for the purpose.

That's more or less what I was suggesting.  The problems are: How do you 
know which put is the last?  (Answer: you don't.  So every put has to be 
done in process context.)  And how do you flag the data structure and tell 
some process thread to do the put?  (Answer: by putting the object on a 
list, as in my suggestion.)

Alan Stern

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