[PATCH] pid: implement access helpers for a tacks various process groups
In the last round of cleaning up the pid hash table a more general struct pid
was introduced, that can be referenced counted.
With the more general struct pid most if not all places where we store a pid_t
we can now store a struct pid * and remove the need for a hash table lookup,
and avoid any possible problems with pid roll over.
Looking forward to the pid namespaces struct pid * gives us an absolute form a
pid so we can compare and use them without caring which pid namespace we are
in.
This patchset introduces the infrastructure needed to use struct pid instead
of pid_t, and then it goes on to convert two different kernel users that
currently store a pid_t value.
There are a lot more places to go but this is enough to get the basic idea.
Before we can merge a pid namespace patch all of the kernel pid_t users need
to be examined. Those that deal with user space processes need to be
converted to using a struct pid *. Those that deal with kernel processes need
to converted to using the kthread api. A rare few that only use their current
processes pid values get to be left alone.
This patch:
task_session returns the struct pid of a tasks session.
task_pgrp returns the struct pid of a tasks process group.
task_tgid returns the struct pid of a tasks thread group.
task_pid returns the struct pid of a tasks process id.
These can be used to avoid unnecessary hash table lookups, and to implement
safe pid comparisions in the face of a pid namespace.
Signed-off-by: Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>