Re: [LSF/MM TOPIC] Discuss least bad options for resolving longterm-GUP usage by RDMA

[Jason Gunthorpe]

On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 09:22:58AM -0800, Dan Williams wrote:

> I honestly don't like the idea that random subsystems can pin down
> file blocks as a side effect of gup on the result of mmap. Recall that
> it's not just RDMA that wants this guarantee. It seems safer to have
> the file be in an explicit block-allocation-immutable-mode so that the
> fallocate man page can describe this error case. Otherwise how would
> you describe the scenarios under which FALLOC_FL_PUNCH_HOLE fails?

I rather liked CL's version of this - ftruncate/etc is simply racing
with a parallel pwrite - and it doesn't fail.

But it also doesnt' trucate/create a hole. Another thread wrote to it
right away and the 'hole' was essentially instantly reallocated. This
is an inherent, pre-existing, race in the ftrucate/etc APIs.

Jason