Re: v6: faster tree-based sysctl implementation
From: Eric W. Biederman <hidden>
Date: 2011-12-18 08:04:11
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I spent some time playing this and managed to get something that works using proc_dir_entries. And while it is simpler (600 less lines of code) it takes about 3x the space of just what using ctl_table entries does. I managed to prove to myself that the current sysctl infrastructure relies the union directory existence semantics pretty strongly. Despite all of Al's work to the contrary when he introduced attached_by and kin in sysctl head. One nice thing I managed to do was to shift around the problem a bit so that only at /proc/sys/net do we to namespace weirdness. Which also considerably simplifies the problem. Now that I know that normal unix directory semantics are a lost cause removing the child entry from ctl_table looks like a very productive exercise. Furthermore it feels like the optimal data structure would be a directory tree that is created on demand as we create entries, and a second copy of that directory tree that is per network namespace. That is very similar to the data structure you wound up with. So in the next little bit I am going to see if I can combine what you did and what I did and see if I can come up with something that is obvious in how it works from looking at it's data structures. Eric