The last half year I've been working on a replacement TTY layer for the
FreeBSD kernel. The new TTY layer was designed to improve the following:
- Improved driver model:
The old TTY layer has a driver model that is not abstract enough to
make it friendly to use. A good example is the output path, where the
device drivers directly access the output buffers. This means that an
in-kernel PPP implementation must always convert network buffers into
TTY buffers.
If a PPP implementation would be built on top of the new TTY layer
(still needs a hooks layer, though), it would allow the PPP
implementation to directly hand the data to the TTY driver.
- Improved hotplugging:
With the old TTY layer, it isn't entirely safe to destroy TTY's from
the system. This implementation has a two-step destructing design,
where the driver first abandons the TTY. After all threads have left
the TTY, the TTY layer calls a routine in the driver, which can be
used to free resources (unit numbers, etc).
The pts(4) driver also implements this feature, which means
posix_openpt() will now return PTY's that are created on the fly.
- Improved performance:
One of the major improvements is the per-TTY mutex, which is expected
to improve scalability when compared to the old Giant locking.
Another change is the unbuffered copying to userspace, which is both
used on TTY device nodes and PTY masters.
Upgrading should be quite straightforward. Unlike previous versions,
existing kernel configuration files do not need to be changed, except
when they reference device drivers that are listed in UPDATING.
Obtained from: //depot/projects/mpsafetty/...
Approved by: philip (ex-mentor)
Discussed: on the lists, at BSDCan, at the DevSummit
Sponsored by: Snow B.V., the Netherlands
dcons(4) fixed by: kan
As clearly mentioned on the mailing lists, there is a list of drivers
that have not been ported to the MPSAFE TTY layer yet. Remove them from
the kernel configuration files. This means people can now still use
these drivers if they explicitly put them in their kernel configuration
file, which is good.
People should keep in mind that after August 10, these drivers will not
work anymore. Even though owners of the hardware are capable of getting
these drivers working again, I will see if I can at least get them to a
compilable state (if time permits).
to detect (or load) kernel NLM support in rpc.lockd. Remove the '-k'
option to rpc.lockd and make kernel NLM the default. A user can still
force the use of the old user NLM by building a kernel without NFSLOCKD
and/or removing the nfslockd.ko module.
- Introduce per-architecture stack_machdep.c to hold stack_save(9).
- Introduce per-architecture machine/stack.h to capture any common
definitions required between db_trace.c and stack_machdep.c.
- Add new kernel option "options STACK"; we will build in stack(9) if it is
defined, or also if "options DDB" is defined to provide compatibility
with existing users of stack(9).
Add new stack_save_td(9) function, which allows the capture of a stacktrace
of another thread rather than the current thread, which the existing
stack_save(9) was limited to. It requires that the thread be neither
swapped out nor running, which is the responsibility of the consumer to
enforce.
Update stack(9) man page.
Build tested: amd64, arm, i386, ia64, powerpc, sparc64, sun4v
Runtime tested: amd64 (rwatson), arm (cognet), i386 (rwatson)
Currently, Giant is not too much contented so that it is ok to treact it
like any other mutexes.
Please don't forget to update your own custom config kernel files.
Approved by: cognet, marcel (maintainers of arches where option is
not enabled at the moment)
more exposure. The current state of SCTP implementation is
considered to be ready for 32-bit platforms, but still need some
work/testing on 64-bit platforms.
Approved by: re (kensmith)
Discussed with: rrs
making the relevant files standard. This avoids duplication and
makes it easier to override/disable unwanted schemes. Since ARM
doesn't have a DEFAULTS configuration file, leave the source
files for the BSD and MBR partitioning schemes in files.arm for
now.
partitioning class that supports multiple schemes. Current
schemes supported are APM (Apple Partition Map) and GPT.
Change all GEOM_APPLE anf GEOM_GPT options into GEOM_PART_APM
and GEOM_PART_GPT (resp).
The ctlreq interface supports verbs to create and destroy
partitioning schemes on a disk; to add, delete and modify
partitions; and to commit or undo changes made.
by default for sun4v where it is absolutely required.
This change moves the buffer from struct pcpu to the stack to avoid
using the critical section which created a LOR in a couple of cases
due to interaction with the tty code and kqueue. The LOR can't be
fixed with the critical section and the pcpu buffer can't be used
without the critical section.
Putting the buffer on the stack was my initial solution, but it was
pointed out that the stress on the stack might cause problems
depending on the call path. We don't have a way of creating tests
for those possible cases, so it's best to leave this as an option
for the time being. In time we may get enough data to enable this
option more generally.
it as a default.
For the record, the KDTRACE option caused _no_ additional source files
to be compiled in; certainly no CDDL source files. All it did was to
allow existing BSD licensed kernel files to include one or more CDDL
header files.
By removing this from DEFAULTS, the onus is on a kernel builder to add
the option to the kernel config, possibly by including GENERIC and
customising from there. It means that DTrace won't be a feature
available in FreeBSD by default, which is the way I intended it to be.
Without this option, you can't load the dtrace module (which contains
the dtrace device and the DTrace framework). This is equivalent to
requiring an option in a kernel config before you can load the linux
emulation module, for example.
I think it is a mistake to have DTrace ported to FreeBSD, but not
to have it available to everyone, all the time. The only exception
to this is the companies which distribute systems with FreeBSD embedded.
Those companies will customise their systems anyway. The KDTRACE
option was intended for them, and only them.
adds the hooks that DTrace modules register with, and adds a few functions
which have the dtrace_ prefix to allow the DTrace FBT (function boundary
trace) provider to avoid tracing because they are called from the DTtrace
probe context.
Unlike other forms of tracing and debug, DTrace support in the kernel
incurs negligible run-time cost.
I think the only reason why anyone wouldn't want to have kernel support
enabled for DTrace would be due to the license (CDDL) under which DTrace
is released.
except sun4v.
This change makes the transition from a default to an option more
transparent and is an attempt to head off all the compliants that are
likely from people who don't read UPDATING, based on experience with
the io/mem change.
Submitted by: scottl@
unsuspecting users.
- Add a comment in NOTES about experimental status of SCHED_ULE.
- Make warning about experimental status in sched_ule(4) a bit
stronger.
Suggested and reviewed by: dougb
Discussed on: developers
MFC after: 3 days
