NetBSD/share/man/man9/kcont.9

.\" 	$NetBSD: kcont.9,v 1.6 2004/03/24 06:03:26 snj Exp $
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.\" The author of this man page is Jonathan Stone (jonathan@dsg.stanford.edu)
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 2003, 2004 Jonathan STone
.\"
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.Dd March 23, 2004
.Dt KCONT 9
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm kcont
.Nd continuation-passing framework for deferring execution and for
notification of asynchronous events
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In sys/kcont.h
.\"
.Ft struct kc *
.Fo kcont
.Fa "struct kc *"
.Fa "void (*fn) (void *kernel_obj, void *env_arg, int status)"
.Fa "void *env_arg"
.Fa "int desired_ipl"
.Fc
.\"
.Ft struct kc *
.Fo kcont_malloc
.Fa "int mallocflags"
.Fa "void (*fn) (void *kernel_obj, void *env_arg, int status)"
.Fa "void *env_arg"
.Fa "int desired_ipl"
.Fc
.\"
.Ft void
.Fo kcont_defer
.Fa "struct kc *kc"
.Fa "void (*fn) (void *kernel_obj, void *env_arg, int status)"
.Fa "void *kernel_obj"
.Fa "void *env_arg"
.Fa "int status"
.Fa "int desired_ipl"
.Fc
.Ft void
.Fo kcont_defer_malloc
.Fa "int mallocflags"
.Fa "void (*fn) (void *kernel_obj, void *env_arg, int status)"
.Fa "void *kernel_obj"
.Fa "void *env_arg"
.Fa "int status"
.Fa "int desired_ipl"
.Fc
.\"
.Ft void
.Fn kcont_enqueue "struct kcq *kcont_queue" "struct kc* kcont"
.\" "void (*fn) (void *kernel_obj, void *env_arg, int status)" "void *env_arg" "int desired_ipl"
.Ft void
.Fn kcont_run "kcq_t *kcq" "void *obj" "int status" "int curipl"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm
provides a method of asynchronous notification of kernel events
(such as I/O completion events) loosely modelled on the
continuation-passing model associated with functional languages such as
Scheme.
In the context of C and Unix kernels, a continuation can
be thought of as a combination of three items:
.Pp
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
a function pointer, or
.Dq callback
function;
.It
an argument (or arguments) to that function; and
.It
other
.Dq environment
state which is passed into the function.
.El
.Pp
The continuations supported by
.Nm
can be used to defer execution from a high-priority context
(such as a hardware-priority interrupt handler) to a lower-priority
context (such as a software-interrupt callout queue specifically for
executing
.Nm
functions).
The
.Nm
mechanism can also be used to deliver notification of asynchronous
events, such as I/O completion.
.Sh TRADITIONAL I/O COMPLETION NOTIFICATION
The traditional Unix methods for asynchronous notification are
.Xr ltsleep 9 ,
.Xr tsleep 9 ,
and
.Xr wakeup 9 ,
which assume the operation or I/O request are being issued from process
context.
Once the I/O operation is actually issued, the requesting process
is suspended by issuing a
.Xr tsleep 9
on the address of the I/O buffer.
When the I/O operation completes, the I/O subsystem issues a
.Xr wakeup 9
call on the address of the I/O buffer.
The process is then awakened, rescheduled, and continues execution
from the
.Fn tsleep
function call, eventually returning to the function which requested I/O.
.Sh CONTINUATIONS
In contrast,
.Nm
constructs an object called a continuation -- a function representing
.Dq the rest of the program to be performed .
Continuations are constructed via the
.Fn kcont
and
.Fn kcont_malloc
functions, which use caller-supplied or dynamically-allocated space,
respectively.
In addition to the continuation-function, argument-object,
and environment, the constructor of each continuation specifies an
target interrupt priority (IPL) above which the continuation should not be run.
.Pp
Once constructed, the continuation can be destined for execution
in one of two ways.
First,
.Fn kcont_defer
or
.Fn kcont_defer_malloc
schedule a continuation for execution as soon as interrupt priority
falls to or below the target IPL of the continuation.
Alternatively, a
.Nm
can be passed by its creator across kernel interfaces which accept
.Nm
objects as methods for notifying the caller (i.e., the
.Nm
creator) on completion of an asynchronous operation.
.Sh DATA TYPES
.Ss Deferral Priorities
Arguments shown above with the name
.Ar desired_ipl
are drawn from the following namespace:
.Bl -tag -offset indent -width KC_IPL_DEFER_SOFTSERIALXX
.It Dv KCL_IPL_IMMEDIATE
Execute the continuation as soon as possible, without regard to current IPL.
.It Dv KCL_IPL_DEFER_SOFTSERIAL
Execute the continuation once IPL falls to
.Dv IPL_SOFTSERIAL
or below.
.It Dv KCL_IPL_DEFER_SOFTCLOCK
Execute the continuation once IPL falls to
.Dv IPL_SOFTCLOCK
or below.
.It Dv KCL_IPL_DEFER_SOFTNET
Execute the continuation once IPL falls to
.Dv IPL_SOFTNET
or below.
.It Dv KCL_IPL_DEFER_PROCESS
Defer execution of the continuation to process context.
.El
.Sh NOTES
The
.Ar desired_ipl
argument should be interpreted as an upper-bound:
the continuation will not be executed before interrupt priority drops
to, or below, the requested level.
In particular, the current implementation uses
.Nx
generic software callouts.
On
.Nx
ports which lack generic software callouts, all
.Nm
continuations will always be deferred all the way to the context
of a
.Dq helper
kernel thread.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr kthread 9 ,
.Xr spl 9 ,
.Xr tsleep 9 ,
.Xr wakeup 9
.Sh AUTHORS
The
.Nm
interface was designed and implemented by
.An Jonathan Stone .
Additional input on the
.Nm
design was provided by Jason Thorpe and Nathan Williams.