underlying the POSIX fifo implementation. In 6.x/7.x, fifo access is
moved from the VFS layer, where it was serialized using the vnode
lock, to the file descriptor layer, where access is protected by a
reference count but not serialized. This exposed socket buffer
locking to high levels of parallelism in specific fifo workloads, such
as make -j 32, which expose as yet unresolved socket buffer bugs.
fi_sx re-adds serialization about the read and write routines,
although not paths that simply test socket buffer mbuf queue state,
such as the poll and kqueue methods. This restores the extra locking
cost previously present in some cases, but is an effective workaround
for the instability that has been experienced. This workaround should
be removed once the bug in socket buffer handling has been fixed.
Reported by: kris, jhb, Julien Gabel <jpeg at thilelli dot net>,
Peter Holm <peter at holm dot cc>, others
MFC after: 3 days
7028887eac