Re: [PATCH v5 2/3] fs: openat2: Extend open_how to allow userspace-selected fds

[Miklos Szeredi]

On Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 9:57 AM Miklos Szeredi <miklos@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 9:45 AM Miklos Szeredi <miklos@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > > I would prefer to not introduce that limitation in the first place, and
> > > instead open normal file descriptors.
> > >
> > > > The point of O_SPECIFIC_FD is to be able to perform short
> > > > sequences of open/dosomething/close without having to block and having
> > > > to issue separate syscalls.
> > >
> > > "close" is not a required component. It's entirely possible to use
> > > io_uring to open a file descriptor, do various things with it, and then
> > > leave it open for subsequent usage via either other io_uring chains or
> > > standalone syscalls.
> >
> > If this use case arraises, we could add an op to dup/move a private
> > descriptor to a public one.  io_uring can return values, right?
> >
> > Still not convinced...
>
> Oh, and we haven't even touched on the biggest advantage of a private
> fd table: not having to dirty a cacheline on fdget/fdput due to the
> possibility of concurrent close() in a MT application.
>
> I believe this is a sticking point in some big enterprise apps and it
> may even be a driving force for io_uring.

https://lwn.net/Articles/787473/

And an interesting (very old) article referenced from above, that
gives yet a new angle on fd allocation issues:

https://lwn.net/Articles/236843/

A private fd space would be perfect for libraries such as glibc.

Thanks,
Miklos