This reverts commit 372c257233. The
use of the PF_MEMALLOC flag was always a hack to work around memory
reclaim deadlocks. Those issues are believed to be resolved so this
workaround can be safely reverted.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
This patch is designed to resolve a deadlock which can occur with
__vmalloc() based slabs. The issue is that the Linux kernel does
not honor the flags passed to __vmalloc(). This makes it unsafe
to use in a writeback context. Unfortunately, this is a use case
ZFS depends on for correct operation.
Fixing this issue in the upstream kernel was pursued and patches
are available which resolve the issue.
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=416685
However, these changes were rejected because upstream felt that
using __vmalloc() in the context of writeback should never be done.
Their solution was for us to rewrite parts of ZFS to accomidate
the Linux VM.
While that is probably the right long term solution, and it is
something we want to pursue, it is not a trivial task and will
likely destabilize the existing code. This work has been planned
for the 0.7.0 release but in the meanwhile we want to improve the
SPL slab implementation to accomidate this expected ZFS usage.
This is accomplished by performing the __vmalloc() asynchronously
in the context of a work queue. This doesn't prevent the posibility
of the worker thread from deadlocking. However, the caller can now
safely block on a wait queue for the slab allocation to complete.
Normally this will occur in a reasonable amount of time and the
caller will be woken up when the new slab is available,. The objects
will then get cached in the per-cpu magazines and everything will
proceed as usual.
However, if the __vmalloc() deadlocks for the reasons described
above, or is just very slow, then the callers on the wait queues
will timeout out. When this rare situation occurs they will attempt
to kmalloc() a single minimally sized object using the GFP_NOIO flags.
This allocation will not deadlock because kmalloc() will honor the
passed flags and the caller will be able to make forward progress.
As long as forward progress can be maintained then even if the
worker thread is deadlocked the critical thread will make progress.
This will eventually allow the deadlocked worker thread to complete
and normal operation will resume.
These emergency allocations will likely be slow since they require
contiguous pages. However, their use should be rare so the impact
is expected to be minimal. If that turns out not to be the case in
practice further optimizations are possible.
One additional concern is if these emergency objects are long lived.
Right now they are simply tracked on a list which must be walked when
an object is freed. Is they accumulate on a system and the list
grows freeing objects will become more expensive. This could be
handled relatively easily by using a hash instead of a list, but that
optimization (if needed) is left for a follow up patch.
Additionally, these emeregency objects could be repacked in to existing
slabs as objects are freed if the kmem_cache_set_move() functionality
was implemented. See issue https://github.com/zfsonlinux/spl/issues/26
for full details. This work would also help reduce ZFS's memory
fragmentation problems.
The /proc/spl/kmem/slab file has had two new columns added at the
end. The 'emerg' column reports the current number of these emergency
objects in use for the cache, and the following 'max' column shows
the historical worst case. These value should give us a good idea
of how often these objects are needed. Based on these values under
real use cases we can tune the default behavior.
Lastly, as a side benefit using a single work queue for the slab
allocations should reduce cpu contention on the global virtual address
space lock. This should manifest itself as reduced cpu usage for
the system.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Remove all of the generated autotools products from the repository
and update the .gitignore files accordingly.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Issue zfsonlinux/zfs#718
To support preempt enabled kernels in ZFS on Linux, there are a couple
places where the ZFS code needs to disable interrupts. This change adds
the Solaris preempt functions and maps them to the equivalent ZFS
functions, allowing the ZFS to make use of them.
Signed-off-by: Prakash Surya <surya1@llnl.gov>
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Issue #98
The spl_magazine_age function had the implied assumption that it will
remain on its current cpu through its execution. In order to support
preempt enabled kernels, this assumption had to be removed.
The spl_kmem_magazine structure now holds the cpu id of the cpu it is
local to. This allows spl_magazine_age to use this field when scheduling
work to be done by the magazine's local cpu.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Issue #98
When building SPL support into the kernel, ./copy-builtin will copy
non-toplevel .gitignore files. These files list /Makefile, which causes
git-archive to omit ./module/{spl,splat}/Makefile. The absence of these
files result in build failures when SPL is selected. ZFS is unaffected
because it puts Makefile in the toplevel .gitignore, which is not
copied. We fix SPL by emulating that behavior.
Reported-by: Fabio Erculiani <lxnay@gentoo.org>
Signed-off-by: Richard Yao <ryao@cs.stonybrook.edu>
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Closes#152
A preprocessor definition renders this harmless. However, it is a good
idea to change this to be consistent.
Signed-off-by: Richard Yao <ryao@cs.stonybrook.edu>
The spl_rwsem_is_locked() compatibility function has been observed
to be a hot spot. The root cause of this is that we must check the
rwsem activity under the rwsem->wait_lock to avoid a race. When
the lock is busy significant contention can occur.
The upstream kernel fix for this race had the insight that by using
spin_trylock_irqsave() this contention could be avoided. When the
lock is contended it's reasonable to return that it is locked.
This change updates the SPLs implemention to be like the upstream
kernel. Since the kernel code has been in use for years now this
a low risk change.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
This prevents warnings in ZFS that were caused by changes necessary to
support PaX patched kernels. When debugging is enabled, these warnings
become build failures.
Signed-off-by: Richard Yao <ryao@cs.stonybrook.edu>
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Closes#131
Usage of get_current() is not supported across all architectures.
The correct interface to use is the '#define current' which will
map to the appropriate function, usually current_thread_info().
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Closes#119
torvalds/linux@1dce27c5aa introduced
__clear_close_on_exec() as a replacement for FD_CLR. Further commits
appear to have removed FD_CLR from the Linux source tree. This
causes the following failure:
error: implicit declaration of function '__FD_CLR'
[-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]
To correct this we update the code to use the current
__clear_close_on_exec() interface for readability. Then we introduce
an autotools check to determine if __clear_close_on_exec() is available.
If it isn't then we define some compatibility logic which used the older
FD_CLR() interface.
Signed-off-by: Richard Yao <ryao@gentoo.org>
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Closes#124
Originally I believed that these interfaces would be needed.
However, in practice it turned out that it was more straight
forward and maintainable to use the native Linux interfaces.
As such, this is all dead code and can be safely removed.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Closes#109
The resolution of issue #31 made KM_PUSHPAGE imply GFP_NOFS. This
was done to prevent situations where filesystem operations which are
holding locks enter direct reclaim and attempt to reaquire those
same locks. This clearly will result in a deadlock.
This works for datasets which are implemented in terms for filesystem
operations. But unfortunately, swapping to a zvol will encounter
many of the same deadlocks and GFP_NOFS will not prevent this. As
such, it is appropriate to extend KM_PUSHPAGE to use the broader
GFP_NOIO mask to handle these non-filesystem cases.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Issue zfsonlinux/zfs#342Closes#105
Previously, the SPL tried to maintain Solaris semantics by freeing
all available (empty) slabs from its slab caches when the shrinker
was called. This is not desirable when running on Linux. To make
the SPL shrinker more Linux friendly, the actual number of freed
slabs from each of the slab caches is now derived from nr_to_scan
and skc_slab_objs.
Additionally, an accounting bug was fixed in spl_slab_reclaim()
which could cause us to reclaim one more slab than requested.
Signed-off-by: Prakash Surya <surya1@llnl.gov>
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Closes#101
Long ago I added support to the spl for condition variable names
because I thought they might be needed. It turns out they aren't.
In fact the official Solaris cv_init(9F) man page discourages
their use in the kernel.
cv_init(9F)
Parameters
name - Descriptive string. This is obsolete and should be
NULL. (Non-NULL strings are legal, but they're a
waste of kernel memory.)
Therefore, I'm removing them from the spl to reclaim this memory
and adding an ASSERT() to ensure no new consumers are added which
make use of the name.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Include the ZFS_META_RELEASE in the module load/unload messages
to more clearly indicate exactly what version of the SPL has
been loaded.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Allow a source rpm to be rebuilt with debugging enabled. This
avoids the need to have to manually modify the spec file. By
default debugging is still largely disabled. To enable specific
debugging features use the following options with rpmbuild.
'--with debug' - Enables ASSERTs
'--with debug-log' - Enables the internal debug log
'--with debug-kmem' - Enables basic memory accounting
'--with debug-kmem-tracking' - Enables detailed memory tracking
# For example:
$ rpmbuild --rebuild --with debug spl-modules-0.6.0-rc6.src.rpm
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
When building the spl with --disable-debug-log the __SDEBUG()
macro and spl_debug_* helper functions were undefined. This
change adds the missing functions so the upper layers compiling
against the spl don't need to be aware of how the spl was built.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Add the bare minimum functionality to support dynamic kstats. A
complete kstat implementation should be done as part of issue #84.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Issue #84
Until now the notion of an internal debug logging infrastructure
was conflated with enabling ASSERT()s. This patch clarifies things
by cleanly breaking the two subsystem apart. The result of this
is the following behavior.
--enable-debug - Enable/disable code wrapped in ASSERT()s.
--disable-debug ASSERT()s are used to check invariants and
are never required for correct operation.
They are disabled by default because they
may impact performance.
--enable-debug-log - Enable/disable the debug log infrastructure.
--disable-debug-log This infrastructure allows the spl code and
its consumer to log messages to an in-kernel
log. The granularity of the logging can be
controlled by a debug mask. By default the
mask disables most debug messages resulting
in a negligible performance impact. Because
of this the debug log is enabled by default.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
When the original build system code was added the release
component was accidentally omited from the development header
install path. This patch adds the missing path component so
it's always clear exactly what release your compiling against.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
The wait_lock member of the rw_semaphore struct became a raw_spinlock_t
in Linux 3.2 at torvalds/linux@ddb6c9b58a.
Wrap spin_lock_* function calls in a new spl_rwsem_* interface to
ensure type safety if raw_spinlock_t becomes architecture specific,
and to satisfy these compiler warnings:
warning: passing argument 1 of ‘spinlock_check’
from incompatible pointer type [enabled by default]
note: expected ‘struct spinlock_t *’
but argument is of type ‘struct raw_spinlock_t *’
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Closes: #76Closes: zfsonlinux/zfs#463
The Proxmox VE kernel contains a patch which renames the function
invalidate_inodes() to invalidate_inodes_check(). In the process
it adds a 'check' argument and a '#define invalidate_inodes(x)'
compatibility wrapper for legacy callers. Therefore, if either
of these functions are exported invalidate_inodes() can be
safely used.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Closes#58
A preallocated taskq_ent_t's tqent_flags must be checked prior to
servicing the taskq_ent_t. Once a preallocated taskq entry is serviced,
the ownership of the entry is handed back to the caller of
taskq_dispatch, thus the entry's contents can potentially be mangled.
In particular, this is a problem in the case where a preallocated taskq
entry is serviced, and the caller clears it's tqent_flags field. Thus,
when the function returns and task_done is called, it looks as though
the entry is **not** a preallocated task (when in fact it **is** a
preallocated task).
In this situation, task_done will place the preallocated taskq_ent_t
structure onto the taskq_t's free list. This is a **huge** mistake. If
the taskq_ent_t is then freed by the caller of taskq_dispatch, the
taskq_t's free list will hold a pointer to garbage data. Even worse, if
nothing has over written the freed memory before the pointer is
dereferenced, it may still look as though it points to a valid list_head
belonging to a taskq_ent_t structure.
Thus, the task entry's flags are now copied prior to servicing the task.
This copy is then checked to see if it is a preallocated task, and
determine if the entry needs to be passed down to the task_done
function.
Signed-off-by: Prakash Surya <surya1@llnl.gov>
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Closes#71
The taskq_t's active thread list is sorted based on its
tqt_ent->tqent_id field. The list is kept sorted solely by inserting
new taskq_thread_t's in their correct sorted location; no other
means is used. This means that once inserted, if a taskq_thread_t's
tqt_ent->tqent_id field changes, the list runs the risk of no
longer being sorted.
Prior to the introduction of the taskq_dispatch_prealloc() interface,
this was not a problem as a taskq_ent_t actively being serviced under
the old interface should always have a static tqent_id field. Thus,
once the taskq_thread_t is added to the taskq_t's active thread list,
the taskq_thread_t's tqt_ent->tqent_id field would remain constant.
Now, this is no longer the case. Currently, if using the
taskq_dispatch_prealloc() interface, any given taskq_ent_t actively
being serviced _may_ have its tqent_id value incremented. This happens
when the preallocated taskq_ent_t structure is recursively dispatched.
Thus, a taskq_thread_t could potentially have its tqt_ent->tqent_id
field silently modified from under its feet. If this were to happen
to a taskq_thread_t on a taskq_t's active thread list, this would
compromise the integrity of the order of the list (as the list
_may_ no longer be sorted).
To get around this, the taskq_thread_t's taskq_ent_t pointer was
replaced with its own static copy of the tqent_id. So, as a taskq_ent_t
is pulled off of the taskq_t's pending list, a static copy of its
tqent_id is made and this copy is used to sort the active thread
list. Using a static copy is key in ensuring the integrity of the
order of the active thread list. Even if the underlying taskq_ent_t
is recursively dispatched (as has its tqent_id modified), this
static copy stored inside the taskq_thread_t will remain constant.
Signed-off-by: Prakash Surya <surya1@llnl.gov>
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Issue #71
Added the necessary build infrastructure for building packages
compatible with the Arch Linux distribution. As such, one can now run:
$ ./configure
$ make pkg # Alternatively, one can run 'make arch' as well
on an Arch Linux machine to create two binary packages compatible with
the pacman package manager, one for the spl userland utilties and
another for the spl kernel modules. The new packages can then be
installed by running:
# pacman -U $package.pkg.tar.xz
In addition, source-only packages suitable for an Arch Linux chroot
environment or remote builder can also be built using the 'sarch' make
rule.
NOTE: Since the source dist tarball is created on the fly from the head
of the build tree, it's MD5 hash signature will be continually influx.
As a result, the md5sum variable was intentionally omitted from the
PKGBUILD files, and the '--skipinteg' makepkg option is used. This may
or may not have any serious security implications, as the source tarball
is not being downloaded from an outside source.
Signed-off-by: Prakash Surya <surya1@llnl.gov>
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Closes: #68
This patch implements the taskq_dispatch_prealloc() interface which
was introduced by the following illumos-gate commit. It allows for
a preallocated taskq_ent_t to be used when dispatching items to a
taskq. This eliminates a memory allocation which helps minimize
lock contention in the taskq when dispatching functions.
commit 5aeb94743e3be0c51e86f73096334611ae3a058e
Author: Garrett D'Amore <garrett@nexenta.com>
Date: Wed Jul 27 07:13:44 2011 -0700
734 taskq_dispatch_prealloc() desired
943 zio_interrupt ends up calling taskq_dispatch with TQ_SLEEP
Signed-off-by: Prakash Surya <surya1@llnl.gov>
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Issue #65
To lay the ground work for introducing the taskq_dispatch_prealloc()
interface, the tq_work_list and tq_threads fields had to be replaced
with new alternatives in the taskq_t structure.
The tq_threads field was replaced with tq_thread_list. Rather than
storing the pointers to the taskq's kernel threads in an array, they are
now stored as a list. In addition to laying the ground work for the
taskq_dispatch_prealloc() interface, this change could also enable taskq
threads to be dynamically created and destroyed as threads can now be
added and removed to this list relatively easily.
The tq_work_list field was replaced with tq_active_list. Instead of
keeping a list of taskq_ent_t's which are currently being serviced, a
list of taskq_threads currently servicing a taskq_ent_t is kept. This
frees up the taskq_ent_t's tqent_list field when it is being serviced
(i.e. now when a taskq_ent_t is being serviced, it's tqent_list field
will be empty).
Signed-off-by: Prakash Surya <surya1@llnl.gov>
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Issue #65
A call site of the MUTEX macro had incorrectly placed its closing
parenthesis, causing two parameters to be passed rather than one. This
change moves the misplaced parenthesis to fix the typographical error.
Signed-off-by: Prakash Surya <surya1@llnl.gov>
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Closes#70
ZFS and 64-bit linux are perfectly capable of dealing with 64-bit
timestamps, but ZFS deliberately prevents setting them. Adjust
the SPL such that TIMESPEC_OVERFLOW will not always assume 32-bit
values and instead use the correct values for your kernel build.
This effectively allows 64-bit timestamps on 64-bit systems.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Closes ZFS issue #487
This is a bit of cleanup I'd been meaning to get to for a while
to reduce the chance of a type conflict. Well that conflict
finally occurred with the kstat_init() function which conflicts
with a function in the 2.6.32-6-pve kernel.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Closes#56
As of Linux 3.1 the shrink_dcache_memory and shrink_icache_memory
functions have been removed. This same task is now accomplished
more cleanly with per super block shrinkers. This unfortunately
leaves us no easy way to support the dnlc_reduce_cache() function.
This support has always been entirely optional. So when no
reasonable interface is available allow the dnlc_reduce_cache()
function to effectively become a no-op.
The downside of this change is that it will prevent the zfs arc
meta data limts from being enforced. However, the current zfs
implementation in this regard is already flawed and needs to
be reworked. If the arc needs to enfore a meta data limit it
will need to be extended to coordinate directly with the zpl.
This will allow us to drop all this compatibility code and get
more fine grained control over the cache management.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Issue #52
Preferentially use the vfs_fsync() function. This function was
initially introduced in 2.6.29 and took three arguments. As
of 2.6.35 the dentry argument was dropped from the function.
For older kernels fall back to using file_fsync() which also
took three arguments including the dentry.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Issue #52
Prior to Linux 3.1 the kern_path_parent symbol was exported for
use by kernel modules. As of Linux 3.1 it is now longer easily
available. To handle this case the spl will now dynamically
look up address of the missing symbol at module load time.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Issue #52
The old define assumed a specific layout of the kmutex_t struct. This
patch makes the macro independent from the actual struct layout.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
The m_owner variable is protected by the mutex itself. Reading the variable
is guaranteed to be atomic (due to it being a word-sized reference) and
ACCESS_ONCE() takes care of read cache effects.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
On kernels with CONFIG_DEBUG_MUTEXES mutex_exit() clears the mutex
owner after releasing the mutex. This would cause mutex_owner()
to return an incorrect owner if another thread managed to lock the
mutex before mutex_exit() had a chance to clear the owner.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Closes ZFS issue #167
File descriptors are a per-process resource. The same descriptor
in different processes can refer to different files. find_file()
incorrectly assumed that file descriptors are globally unique.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
Closes ZFS issue #386
Prior to Linux 2.6.39 when CONFIG_DEBUG_MUTEXES was defined
the kernel stored a thread_info pointer as the mutex owner.
From this you could get the pointer of the current task_struct
to compare with get_current().
As of Linux 2.6.39 this behavior has changed and now the mutex
stores a pointer to the task_struct. This commit detects the
type of pointer stored in the mutex and adjusts the mutex_owner()
and mutex_owned() functions to perform the correct comparision.
Deprecate the /usr/bin/hostid call by reading the /etc/hostid file
directly. Add the spl_hostid_path parameter to override the default
/etc/hostid path.
Rename the set_hostid() function to hostid_exec() to better reflect
actual behavior and complement the new hostid_read() function.
Use HW_INVALID_HOSTID as the spl_hostid sentinel value because
zero seems to be a valid gethostid() result on Linux.
While the splat tests were originally designed to stress test
the Solaris primatives. I am extending them to include some kernel
compatibility tests. Certain linux APIs have changed frequently.
These tests ensure that added compatibility is working properly
and no unnoticed regression have slipped in.
Test 1 and 2 add basic regression tests for shrink_icache_memory
and shrink_dcache_memory. These are simply functional tests to
ensure we can call these functions safely. Checking for correct
behavior is more difficult since other running processes will
influence the behavior. However, these functions are provided
by the kernel so if we can successfully call them we assume they
are working correctly.
Test 3 checks that shrinker functions are being registered and
called correctly. As of Linux 3.0 the shrinker API has changed
four different times so I felt the need to add a trivial test
case to ensure each variant works as expected.
Update the the wrapper macros for the memory shrinker to handle
this 4th API change. The callback function now takes a
shrink_control structure. This is certainly a step in the
right direction but it's annoying to have to accomidate yet
another version of the API.
It has become necessary to be able to optionally disable
direct memory reclaim for certain taskqs. To support
this the TASKQ_NORECLAIM flags has been added which sets
the PF_MEMALLOC bit for all threads in the taskq.
The uid_t on most systems is in fact and unsigned 32-bit value.
This is almost always correct, however you could compile your
kernel to use an unsigned 16-bit value for uid_t. In practice
I've never encountered a distribution which does this so I'm
willing to overlook this corner case for now.
The correct definition of MAXOFFSET_T under Solaris is in reality
tied to the maximum size of a 'long long' type. With this in mind
MAXOFFSET_T is now defined as LLONG_MAX which ensures the correct
value is used on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems.
Provide a call_usermodehelper() alternative by letting the hostid be passed as
a module parameter like this:
$ modprobe spl spl_hostid=0x12345678
Internally change the spl_hostid variable to unsigned long because that is the
type that the coreutils /usr/bin/hostid returns.
Move the hostid command into GET_HOSTID_CMD for consistency with the similar
GET_KALLSYMS_ADDR_CMD invocation.
Use argv[0] instead of sh_path for consistency internally and with other Linux
drivers.
Signed-off-by: Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov>
The function zlib_deflate_workspacesize() now take 2 arguments.
This was done to avoid always having to allocate the maximum size
workspace (268K). The caller can now specific the windowBits and
memLevel compression parameters to get a smaller workspace.
For our purposes we introduce a spl_zlib_deflate_workspacesize()
wrapper which accepts both arguments. When the two argument
version of zlib_deflate_workspacesize() is available the arguments
are passed through. When it's not we assume the worst case and
a maximally sized workspace is used.
The path_lookup() function has been renamed to kern_path_parent()
and the flags argument has been removed. The only behavior now
offered is that of LOOKUP_PARENT. The spl already always passed
this flag so dropping the flag does not impact us.
