Re: copy on write for splice() from file to pipe?

[Ming Lei]

On Fri, Feb 10, 2023 at 02:08:35PM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 10, 2023 at 1:51 PM Jens Axboe <axboe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > Speaking of splice/io_uring, Ming posted this today:
> >
> > https://lore.kernel.org/io-uring/20230210153212.733006-1-ming.lei@xxxxxxxxxx/
> 
> Ugh. Some of that is really ugly. Both 'ignore_sig' and
> 'ack_page_consuming' just look wrong. Pure random special cases.
> 
> And that 'ignore_sig' is particularly ugly, since the only thing that
> sets it also sets SPLICE_F_NONBLOCK.
> 
> And the *only* thing that actually then checks that field is
> 'splice_from_pipe_next()', where there are exactly two
> signal_pending() checks that it adds to, and
> 
>  (a) the first one is to protect from endless loops
> 
>  (b) the second one is irrelevant when  SPLICE_F_NONBLOCK is set
> 
> So honestly, just NAK on that series.
> 
> I think that instead of 'ignore_sig' (which shouldn't exist), that
> first 'signal_pending()' check in splice_from_pipe_next() should just
> be changed into a 'fatal_signal_pending()'.

Good point, here the signal is often from task_work_add() called by
io_uring.

> 
> But that 'ack_page_consuming' thing looks even more disgusting, and
> since I'm not sure why it even exists, I don't know what it's doing
> wrong.

The motivation is for confirming that if the produced buffer can be used
for READ or WRITE. Another way could be to add PIPE_BUF_FLAG_MAY_READ[WRITE].

thanks,
Ming