Re: [RESEND PATCH V4] pidns: introduce syscall translate_pid

From: Andrew Morton
Date: Tue Apr 03 2018 - 17:52:57 EST


On Tue, 3 Apr 2018 14:45:28 -0700 Nagarathnam Muthusamy <nagarathnam.muthusamy@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > This changelog doesn't explain what the value is to our users. I
> > assume it is a performance optimization because "backward translation
> > requires scanning all tasks"? If so, please show us real-world
> > examples of the performance benefit from this patch, and please go to
> > great lengths to explain to us why this optimisation is needed by our
> > users.
>
> One of the usecase by Oracle database involves multiple levels of
> nested pid namespaces and we require pid translation between the
> levels. Discussions on the particular usecase, why any of the existing
> methods was not usable happened in the following thread.
>
> https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/10276785/
>
> At the end, it was agreed that this patch along with flocks will solve the
> issue.

Nobody who reads this patch's changelog will know any of this. Please
let's get all this information into the proper place.