On Mon, Oct 09, 2017 at 03:07:23PM +0100, Alex Bennée wrote: > > Dave Martin <dave.mar...@arm.com> writes: > > > On Mon, Oct 09, 2017 at 10:34:25AM +0100, Alex Bennée wrote: > >> > >> Dave Martin <dave.mar...@arm.com> writes: > >> > >> > On Fri, Oct 06, 2017 at 04:43:43PM +0100, Szabolcs Nagy wrote: > >> >> On 31/08/17 18:00, Dave Martin wrote: > >> >> > +9. System runtime configuration > >> >> > +-------------------------------- > >> >> > + > >> >> > +* To mitigate the ABI impact of expansion of the signal frame, a > >> >> > policy > >> >> > + mechanism is provided for administrators, distro maintainers and > >> >> > developers > >> >> > + to set the default vector length for userspace processes: > >> >> > + > >> >> > +/proc/cpu/sve_default_vector_length > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> elsewhere in the patch series i see > >> >> > >> >> /proc/sys/abi/sve_default_vector_length > >> >> > >> >> is this supposed to be the same? > >> > > >> > Good spot, thanks! > >> > > >> > /proc/cpu/ was the old location: they should both say /proc/abi/. > >> > I'll fix it. > >> > >> Isn't /sys (or rather sysfs) the preferred location for modern control > >> knobs that mirror the kernels object model or is SVE a special case for > >> extending /proc? > > > > I couldn't figure out which kernel object this maps to. There's no > > device, no driver. This isn't even per-cpu. > > Hmm I can see: > > /sys/devices/system/cpu > > On both my x86 and arm64 systems - but I guess this is more ABIish than > CPU feature related. > > > sysctl is already used for similar knobs to this one, so I followed that > > precedent -- though if someone argues strongly enough it could be > > changed. > > > > Are there already examples of arch controls like this in sysfs? I > > wasn't aware of any, but I didn't look all that hard... > > Given the paucity of the /proc/sys/abi on both systems I guess this sort > of knob is rare enough that people haven't expressed a strong preference > for sysfs here. I have no objection to staying with /proc/sys/abi/.
That was my thinking: sysctls tend to control the kernel, especially process behaviour, whereas /sys/ controls devices and subsystems. That's not a concrete rule though and not written down, and doubtless a major new set of sysctls would be shot down regardless of what they do. Part of the problem with /proc is that people historically put things in there that have random ad-hoc behaviour and semantics. The sysctl framework at least imposes some sanity here. There is also some support for specialising sysctls to user namespaces, which makes some sense in that /proc/sys/abi/* should probably be per- container -- though whether it's ever considered important enough to actually be implemented is another question. I certainly don't attempt to do it today. I don't know how sysfs interacts with namespaces, but probably it can. I guess I'll wait for someone to object loudly... Cheers ---Dave _______________________________________________ kvmarm mailing list kvmarm@lists.cs.columbia.edu https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/kvmarm