Resend with subject: No more non-MPSAFE network device drivers, please!

Anish Mistry mistry.7 at osu.edu
Mon May 22 14:11:33 UTC 2006


On Monday 22 May 2006 10:01, Robert Watson wrote:
> On Mon, 22 May 2006, Sergey Matveychuk wrote:
> >> We have also discussed requiring that all network device drivers
> >> in the system for 7.0 be able to operate MPSAFE.  This runs into
> >> some issues due to non-MPSAFEty of some key device driver
> >> subsystems, including Firewire, USB, and the TTY subsystem. 
> >> Poul-Henning is in the process of working on MPSAFE tty support,
> >> and I hope that people will step up to the plate to work on the
> >> remaining subsystems in the near future.  That way we will be
> >> able to remove the compatibility code, and continue cleanup and
> >> optimization work.
> >
> > Looks like there are no developers right now who could rewrite
> > USB stack to be MPSAFE. So all USB-Ethernet are broken.
>
> Yes, hence this being something we are discussing, as opposed to
> implementing. In order for us to get to a world entirely without
> Giant-compatibility for network device drivers, we need to address
> the MPSAFEty of those major subsystems.  The goal of this message
> was to make sure we don't start growing new major subsystems and
> network device drivers -- i.e., that we're into the realm of
> monotonically decreasing numbers of non-MPSAFE network device
> drivers.  Specifically, I don't want to see any more PCI network
> device drivers that require Giant!
>
> Per discussion at the developer summit, a significant rewrite of
> the USB code is needed to make it MPSAFE.  Volunteers welcome.
I'm pretty sure HPS USB stack is MPSAFE, or at least that's the goal.

-- 
Anish Mistry
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