Re: [patch] remove redundant iov segment check

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On Dec 4, 2006, at 8:26 AM, Chen, Kenneth W wrote:

The access_ok() and negative length check on each iov segment in function generic_file_aio_read/write are redundant. They are all already checked
before calling down to these low level generic functions.

...

So it's not possible to call down to generic_file_aio_read/write with invalid
iov segment.

Well, generic_file_aio_{read,write}() are exported to modules, so anything's *possible*. :)

This change makes me nervous because it relies on our ability to audit all code paths to ensure that it's correct. It'd be nice if the code enforced the rules.

I wonder if it wouldn't be better to make this change as part of a larger change that moves towards an explicit iovec container struct rather than bare 'struct iov *' and 'nr_segs' arguments. The struct could have a flag that expressed whether the elements had been checked. A helper could be called by the upper and lower code paths which does the checking, marks the flag, and avoids checking again if the flag is set.

We've wanted an explicit struct in the past to avoid the multiple walks of iovecs that various paths do for their own reasons. The iovec walk that is checking for length wrapping could also be building a bitmap of length alignment that O_DIRECT could be using to test 512B alignment without having to walk the iovec again.

I started on such a patch set at some point in the murky past. It got kind of gross when it got to paths that want to modify the iovec in place. It's all doable, it'll just take some work. Christoph and I have discussed it in the past, I wonder if he has any thing like this going.

- z
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