BGL

Ansar Mohammed ansarm at gmail.com
Fri Sep 30 20:58:13 PDT 2005


I love FreeBSD. I have been using it since 2.x. I have never had any
problems with it. Rock Solid. Never a single kernel panic.

Then I come across this article in a comparison between Linux and FreeBSD
saying that FreeBSD has kernel locking issues. Specifically, a problem
nicknamed BGL or Big Giant Lock. It seems that it affects SMP systems under
high load.

How much do other OSes suffer from this?


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kris Kennaway [mailto:kris at obsecurity.org]
> Sent: September 30, 2005 4:46 PM
> To: Ansar Mohammed
> Cc: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: BGL
> 
> On Thu, Sep 29, 2005 at 10:09:17PM -0400, Ansar Mohammed wrote:
> > Is the kernel locking issue with FreeBSD 4.x sorted out in 5.x? I can't
> seem
> > to get a proper answer.
> 
> Perhaps because the above isn't a proper question?  Yes, the BGL was
> pushed down a lot in FreeBSD 5.  It still covers some parts of the
> kernel (less in 6), so if can be more precise about a specific
> "locking issue" then perhaps we can give a more precise answer.
> 
> Kris



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