diff options
author | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org> | 2005-04-16 18:20:36 -0400 |
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committer | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org> | 2005-04-16 18:20:36 -0400 |
commit | 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 (patch) | |
tree | 0bba044c4ce775e45a88a51686b5d9f90697ea9d /Documentation/locks.txt |
Linux-2.6.12-rc2v2.6.12-rc2
Initial git repository build. I'm not bothering with the full history,
even though we have it. We can create a separate "historical" git
archive of that later if we want to, and in the meantime it's about
3.2GB when imported into git - space that would just make the early
git days unnecessarily complicated, when we don't have a lot of good
infrastructure for it.
Let it rip!
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1 | File Locking Release Notes | ||
2 | |||
3 | Andy Walker <andy@lysaker.kvaerner.no> | ||
4 | |||
5 | 12 May 1997 | ||
6 | |||
7 | |||
8 | 1. What's New? | ||
9 | -------------- | ||
10 | |||
11 | 1.1 Broken Flock Emulation | ||
12 | -------------------------- | ||
13 | |||
14 | The old flock(2) emulation in the kernel was swapped for proper BSD | ||
15 | compatible flock(2) support in the 1.3.x series of kernels. With the | ||
16 | release of the 2.1.x kernel series, support for the old emulation has | ||
17 | been totally removed, so that we don't need to carry this baggage | ||
18 | forever. | ||
19 | |||
20 | This should not cause problems for anybody, since everybody using a | ||
21 | 2.1.x kernel should have updated their C library to a suitable version | ||
22 | anyway (see the file "Documentation/Changes".) | ||
23 | |||
24 | 1.2 Allow Mixed Locks Again | ||
25 | --------------------------- | ||
26 | |||
27 | 1.2.1 Typical Problems - Sendmail | ||
28 | --------------------------------- | ||
29 | Because sendmail was unable to use the old flock() emulation, many sendmail | ||
30 | installations use fcntl() instead of flock(). This is true of Slackware 3.0 | ||
31 | for example. This gave rise to some other subtle problems if sendmail was | ||
32 | configured to rebuild the alias file. Sendmail tried to lock the aliases.dir | ||
33 | file with fcntl() at the same time as the GDBM routines tried to lock this | ||
34 | file with flock(). With pre 1.3.96 kernels this could result in deadlocks that, | ||
35 | over time, or under a very heavy mail load, would eventually cause the kernel | ||
36 | to lock solid with deadlocked processes. | ||
37 | |||
38 | |||
39 | 1.2.2 The Solution | ||
40 | ------------------ | ||
41 | The solution I have chosen, after much experimentation and discussion, | ||
42 | is to make flock() and fcntl() locks oblivious to each other. Both can | ||
43 | exists, and neither will have any effect on the other. | ||
44 | |||
45 | I wanted the two lock styles to be cooperative, but there were so many | ||
46 | race and deadlock conditions that the current solution was the only | ||
47 | practical one. It puts us in the same position as, for example, SunOS | ||
48 | 4.1.x and several other commercial Unices. The only OS's that support | ||
49 | cooperative flock()/fcntl() are those that emulate flock() using | ||
50 | fcntl(), with all the problems that implies. | ||
51 | |||
52 | |||
53 | 1.3 Mandatory Locking As A Mount Option | ||
54 | --------------------------------------- | ||
55 | |||
56 | Mandatory locking, as described in 'Documentation/mandatory.txt' was prior | ||
57 | to this release a general configuration option that was valid for all | ||
58 | mounted filesystems. This had a number of inherent dangers, not the least | ||
59 | of which was the ability to freeze an NFS server by asking it to read a | ||
60 | file for which a mandatory lock existed. | ||
61 | |||
62 | From this release of the kernel, mandatory locking can be turned on and off | ||
63 | on a per-filesystem basis, using the mount options 'mand' and 'nomand'. | ||
64 | The default is to disallow mandatory locking. The intention is that | ||
65 | mandatory locking only be enabled on a local filesystem as the specific need | ||
66 | arises. | ||
67 | |||
68 | Until an updated version of mount(8) becomes available you may have to apply | ||
69 | this patch to the mount sources (based on the version distributed with Rick | ||
70 | Faith's util-linux-2.5 package): | ||
71 | |||
72 | *** mount.c.orig Sat Jun 8 09:14:31 1996 | ||
73 | --- mount.c Sat Jun 8 09:13:02 1996 | ||
74 | *************** | ||
75 | *** 100,105 **** | ||
76 | --- 100,107 ---- | ||
77 | { "noauto", 0, MS_NOAUTO }, /* Can only be mounted explicitly */ | ||
78 | { "user", 0, MS_USER }, /* Allow ordinary user to mount */ | ||
79 | { "nouser", 1, MS_USER }, /* Forbid ordinary user to mount */ | ||
80 | + { "mand", 0, MS_MANDLOCK }, /* Allow mandatory locks on this FS */ | ||
81 | + { "nomand", 1, MS_MANDLOCK }, /* Forbid mandatory locks on this FS */ | ||
82 | /* add new options here */ | ||
83 | #ifdef MS_NOSUB | ||
84 | { "sub", 1, MS_NOSUB }, /* allow submounts */ | ||