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Date:      Mon, 23 Aug 1999 10:06:54 +0930
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To:        Matthew Dillon <dillon@apollo.backplane.com>
Cc:        FreeBSD Hackers <hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>, FreeBSD Committers <cvs-committers@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Mandatory locking?
Message-ID:  <19990823100654.B83273@freebie.lemis.com>
In-Reply-To: <199908230031.RAA00909@apollo.backplane.com>; from Matthew Dillon on Sun, Aug 22, 1999 at 05:31:44PM -0700
References:  <19990823095310.A83273@freebie.lemis.com> <199908230031.RAA00909@apollo.backplane.com>

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On Sunday, 22 August 1999 at 17:31:44 -0700, Matthew Dillon wrote:
>
>> Questions:
>> 
>> 1.  Do we have some form of mandatory locking?  If so, what is it?
>
>     No we don't, unless you count the ad-hoc lockout in the master/slave pty
>     interface :-).
>
>> 2.  Would it make sense to implement System V's fcntl semantics?
>>     They're rather tacky: you set the setgid bit and reset the group
>>     exec bit of the file permissions.
>
>     Ugh.  Yuch.  No, nothing to do with permission bits, not for something
>     this convoluted!

I don't like it either, but for compatibility reasons it would make
sense.  That's why I suggested a sysctl knob.

>> 3.  Alternatively (or additionally), would it make sense to have an
>>     additional fcntl function which performs mandatory locking?
>> 
>> I think that it's probably a good idea to implement (3), and also to
>> do (2), possibly subject to a sysctl knob.
>
>     Well, #3 can't be mandatory if you have to make a fcntl call!

Somehow you need to get a lock.

>     You mean have one program make a fcntl call that causes other
>     programs to return an error or block if they try to open that
>     file while the first program holds an open descriptor?

Correct.  I suppose it's worth discussing what the default should be.
Should they get EAGAIN or block?  Obviously you'd want a way of
specifying which, but there would have to be a default for
non-lock-aware programs.  I think I'd go for blocking; it's less error
prone.

Greg
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