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pool_cache_invalidate(9) (wrong?) semantic -- enable xcall invalidation



I would like to turn back on the xcall(9) block found in pool_cache_invalidate(), now that rmind@ has implemented high priority cross calls [1].

Reasons are following:

A while back I had to find a way to invalidate all allocations done in a pool_cache(9). Unfortunately, the pool_cache_invalidate(9) function is misleading: it only invalidates and reclaim objects cached in the "global" lists, and not those cache in the per-cpu ones.

This has unexpected consequences; all consumers of the pool_cache(9) API have to ensure that the objects they get out of it are still valid (see pmap allocation in x86 pmap_create() as an example).

In my case (PAE support for Xen save/restore), page directories may be cached in a per-cpu pool; not invalidating them upon suspend will lead to wrong type pinning and completely break restore.

I had to introduce pool_cache_invalidate_local(9) function back then to permit each CPU to deplete their pool and destroy all cached objects. This made the API abstraction leaky, and was quickly backed out [2].

Unfortunately the cross-call block had to be commented out later on, as it only allowed pools with low IPL to be managed [3]. Now that this is fixed, I'd like to enable it again. XC_HIGHPRI makes cross calls (for x86) via IPIs combined with a softint that runs on the targeted CPUs. So I would expect pool_cache_invalidate() to be safe for pools used in interrupt context too.

Opinions?

[1] http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/sys/kern/subr_xcall.c#rev1.12

[2] http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/sys/kern/subr_pool.c#rev1.176

[3] http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/sys/kern/subr_pool.c#rev1.182

--
Jean-Yves Migeon
jeanyves.migeon%free.fr@localhost


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