Hi.

I sometimes sees long name hash chain like this:

enami@prot-fault% more vmstat.out 
		    total     used     util	 num  average  maximum
hash table	  buckets  buckets	  %    items	chain	 chain
nchash		   131072    47243    36.04    72000	 1.52	  1071

There is 2 scenario:

1) cache_lookup() returns -1 if failed to lock vnode or find v_id
   mismatch after the cache hit.  Then, vfs lookup routine may does
   normal processing and will enter new cache entry.  Unless parent's
   v_id changes, it will go to the same bucket.

2) At least nfs_lookup() routine decides the hit cache invalid by
   itself, and does normal processing and enter new cache entry.  For
   the same reason above, new entry will go the same bucket.

For 1), I think cache_lookup() should remove the entry if it returns
-1.

For 2), I can imagine two fix.  one is to introduce new function to
remove cache entry and call it where appropriate in addition to
cache_purge().  The other is to lookup an existing entry in
cache_enter() and reuse it if there is.  I prefer the latter.

Thoughts?

enami.