On Sun, Apr 20, 2008 at 02:27:14PM +0200, Andi Kleen wrote:
Clearly if I have the choice between a kernel which can run 50k threads
and a kernel which does not crash under me during an I/O error, I choose
the later! I don't even imagine what purpose 50k kernel threads may serve.
I certainly can understand that reducing memory footprint is useful, but
if we want wider testing of 4k stacks, considering they may fail in error
path in complex I/O environment, it's not likely during -rc kernels that
we'll detect problems, and if we push them down the throat of users in a
stable release, of course they will thank us very much for crashing their
NFS servers in production during peak hours.
I have nothing against changing the default setting to 4k provided that
it is easy to get back to the save setting (ie changing a config option,
or better, a cmdline parameter). I just don't agree with the idea of
forcing users to swim in the sh*t, it only brings bad reputation to
Linux.
What would really help would be to have 8k stacks with the lower page
causing a fault and print a stack trace upon first access. That way,
the safe setting would still report us useful information without
putting users into trouble.
Willy
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