Re: [patch] zfs livelock and thread priorities

On May 18, 2009, at 11:29 AM, John Baldwin wrote:
> On Saturday 16 May 2009 12:40:44 pm Ben Kelly wrote:
>>   1) It changes the kproc(9) API by adding a kproc_create_priority()
>> function that allows you to set the priority of the newly created
>> thread.  I'm not sure how people feel about this.
>
> Actually, I almost think we should just add a priority argument to  
> each of the
> routines that creates a new kthread/kproc.  Perhaps allow a priority  
> of 0 to
> let the thread run with the default priority.  Hmm, it looks like  
> kthreads
> default to running with whatever thread0 runs at (PVM) which is  
> probably not
> really ideal.  Having an explicit priority for every kthread would  
> probably
> be best.  Most kthreads should probably be at PZERO by default I  
> think.

If this approach was taken would it make sense to use a flag to  
indicate "use the specified priority" since 0 is a valid priority value?

Thanks.

- Ben