Re: [RFC] simple_lmk: Introduce Simple Low Memory Killer for Android

[Joel Fernandes <joel@joelfernandes.org>]

On Fri, Mar 15, 2019 at 07:24:28PM +0100, Christian Brauner wrote:
[..]
> > why do we want to add a new syscall (pidfd_wait) though? Why not just use
> > standard poll/epoll interface on the proc fd like Daniel was suggesting.
> > AFAIK, once the proc file is opened, the struct pid is essentially pinned
> > even though the proc number may be reused. Then the caller can just poll.
> > We can add a waitqueue to struct pid, and wake up any waiters on process
> > death (A quick look shows task_struct can be mapped to its struct pid) and
> > also possibly optimize it using Steve's TIF flag idea. No new syscall is
> > needed then, let me know if I missed something?
> 
> Huh, I thought that Daniel was against the poll/epoll solution?

Hmm, going through earlier threads, I believe so now. Here was Daniel's
reasoning about avoiding a notification about process death through proc
directory fd: http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1811.0/00232.html

May be a dedicated syscall for this would be cleaner after all.

> I have no clear opinion on what is better at the moment since I have
> been mostly concerned with getting pidfd_send_signal() into shape and
> was reluctant to put more ideas/work into this if it gets shutdown.
> Once we have pidfd_send_signal() the wait discussion makes sense.

Ok. It looks like that is almost in though (fingers crossed :)).

thanks,

 - Joel