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+        $Id: README.Locking,v 1.9 2004/11/20 10:35:40 dwmw2 Exp $
+
+        JFFS2 LOCKING DOCUMENTATION
+        ---------------------------
+
+At least theoretically, JFFS2 does not require the Big Kernel Lock
+(BKL), which was always helpfully obtained for it by Linux 2.4 VFS
+code. It has its own locking, as described below.
+
+This document attempts to describe the existing locking rules for
+JFFS2. It is not expected to remain perfectly up to date, but ought to
+be fairly close.
+
+
+        alloc_sem
+        ---------
+
+The alloc_sem is a per-filesystem semaphore, used primarily to ensure
+contiguous allocation of space on the medium. It is automatically
+obtained during space allocations (jffs2_reserve_space()) and freed
+upon write completion (jffs2_complete_reservation()). Note that
+the garbage collector will obtain this right at the beginning of
+jffs2_garbage_collect_pass() and release it at the end, thereby
+preventing any other write activity on the file system during a
+garbage collect pass.
+
+When writing new nodes, the alloc_sem must be held until the new nodes
+have been properly linked into the data structures for the inode to
+which they belong. This is for the benefit of NAND flash - adding new
+nodes to an inode may obsolete old ones, and by holding the alloc_sem
+until this happens we ensure that any data in the write-buffer at the
+time this happens are part of the new node, not just something that
+was written afterwards. Hence, we can ensure the newly-obsoleted nodes
+don't actually get erased until the write-buffer has been flushed to
+the medium.
+
+With the introduction of NAND flash support and the write-buffer, 
+the alloc_sem is also used to protect the wbuf-related members of the
+jffs2_sb_info structure. Atomically reading the wbuf_len member to see
+if the wbuf is currently holding any data is permitted, though.
+
+Ordering constraints: See f->sem.
+
+
+        File Semaphore f->sem
+        ---------------------
+
+This is the JFFS2-internal equivalent of the inode semaphore i->i_sem.
+It protects the contents of the jffs2_inode_info private inode data,
+including the linked list of node fragments (but see the notes below on
+erase_completion_lock), etc.
+
+The reason that the i_sem itself isn't used for this purpose is to
+avoid deadlocks with garbage collection -- the VFS will lock the i_sem
+before calling a function which may need to allocate space. The
+allocation may trigger garbage-collection, which may need to move a
+node belonging to the inode which was locked in the first place by the
+VFS. If the garbage collection code were to attempt to lock the i_sem
+of the inode from which it's garbage-collecting a physical node, this
+lead to deadlock, unless we played games with unlocking the i_sem
+before calling the space allocation functions.
+
+Instead of playing such games, we just have an extra internal
+semaphore, which is obtained by the garbage collection code and also
+by the normal file system code _after_ allocation of space.
+
+Ordering constraints: 
+
+        1. Never attempt to allocate space or lock alloc_sem with 
+           any f->sem held.
+        2. Never attempt to lock two file semaphores in one thread.
+           No ordering rules have been made for doing so.
+
+
+        erase_completion_lock spinlock
+        ------------------------------
+
+This is used to serialise access to the eraseblock lists, to the
+per-eraseblock lists of physical jffs2_raw_node_ref structures, and
+(NB) the per-inode list of physical nodes. The latter is a special
+case - see below.
+
+As the MTD API no longer permits erase-completion callback functions
+to be called from bottom-half (timer) context (on the basis that nobody
+ever actually implemented such a thing), it's now sufficient to use
+a simple spin_lock() rather than spin_lock_bh().
+
+Note that the per-inode list of physical nodes (f->nodes) is a special
+case. Any changes to _valid_ nodes (i.e. ->flash_offset & 1 == 0) in
+the list are protected by the file semaphore f->sem. But the erase
+code may remove _obsolete_ nodes from the list while holding only the
+erase_completion_lock. So you can walk the list only while holding the
+erase_completion_lock, and can drop the lock temporarily mid-walk as
+long as the pointer you're holding is to a _valid_ node, not an
+obsolete one.
+
+The erase_completion_lock is also used to protect the c->gc_task
+pointer when the garbage collection thread exits. The code to kill the
+GC thread locks it, sends the signal, then unlocks it - while the GC
+thread itself locks it, zeroes c->gc_task, then unlocks on the exit path.
+
+
+        inocache_lock spinlock
+        ----------------------
+
+This spinlock protects the hashed list (c->inocache_list) of the
+in-core jffs2_inode_cache objects (each inode in JFFS2 has the
+correspondent jffs2_inode_cache object). So, the inocache_lock
+has to be locked while walking the c->inocache_list hash buckets.
+
+Note, the f->sem guarantees that the correspondent jffs2_inode_cache
+will not be removed. So, it is allowed to access it without locking
+the inocache_lock spinlock. 
+
+Ordering constraints: 
+
+        If both erase_completion_lock and inocache_lock are needed, the
+        c->erase_completion has to be acquired first.
+
+
+        erase_free_sem
+        --------------
+
+This semaphore is only used by the erase code which frees obsolete
+node references and the jffs2_garbage_collect_deletion_dirent()
+function. The latter function on NAND flash must read _obsolete_ nodes
+to determine whether the 'deletion dirent' under consideration can be
+discarded or whether it is still required to show that an inode has
+been unlinked. Because reading from the flash may sleep, the
+erase_completion_lock cannot be held, so an alternative, more
+heavyweight lock was required to prevent the erase code from freeing
+the jffs2_raw_node_ref structures in question while the garbage
+collection code is looking at them.
+
+Suggestions for alternative solutions to this problem would be welcomed.
+
+
+        wbuf_sem
+        --------
+
+This read/write semaphore protects against concurrent access to the
+write-behind buffer ('wbuf') used for flash chips where we must write
+in blocks. It protects both the contents of the wbuf and the metadata
+which indicates which flash region (if any) is currently covered by 
+the buffer.
+
+Ordering constraints:
+        Lock wbuf_sem last, after the alloc_sem or and f->sem.