Re: [PATCH 4/5] bio: introduce BIO_FOLL_PIN flag

[John Hubbard]

On 8/22/20 11:25 PM, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 21, 2020 at 09:20:58PM -0700, John Hubbard wrote:
> > Add a new BIO_FOLL_PIN flag to struct bio, whose "short int" flags field
> > was full, thuse triggering an expansion of the field from 16, to 32
> > bits. This allows for a nice assertion in bio_release_pages(), that the
> > bio page release mechanism matches the page acquisition mechanism.
> >
> > Set BIO_FOLL_PIN whenever pin_user_pages_fast() is used, and check for
> > BIO_FOLL_PIN before using unpin_user_page().
>
> When would the flag not be set when BIO_NO_PAGE_REF is not set?

Well, I don't *think* you can get there. However, I've only been studying
bio/block for a fairly short time, and the scattering of get_page() and
put_page() calls in some of the paths made me wonder if, for example,
someone was using get_page() to acquire ITER_BVEC or ITER_KVEC via
get_page(), and release them via bio_release_pages(). It's hard to tell.

It seems like that shouldn't be part of the design. I'm asserting that
it isn't, with this new flag. But if you're sure that this assertion is
unnecessary, then let's just drop this patch, of course.

> Also I don't think we can't just expand the flags field, but I can send
> a series to kill off two flags.

Good to know, just in case we do want this flag. Great!

thanks,
--
John Hubbard
NVIDIA