Re: lock_kernel() & kmalloc - evil together?

[Linus Torvalds]

In article <[e-mail]>, Theodore Y. Ts'o <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>   Basically, the rule is that if you use a global cli/sti region, all bets
>   are off. 
>
>Hopefully only for the cpu which called the global cli() function,
>right?

Right.

Basically, the global cli/sti stuff plays games with the interrupt state
and thus potentially the counts.  At least it used to do so - I don't
think the current version does, at least not on x86, but basically it's
not something you should depend on. 

Same goes for the softirq variants (ie "bh_disable()" and "bh_enable()")
which really _do_ mess with the counts right now. 

		Linus