11.1. Scheduling Tasks

Very often, we have "housekeeping" tasks which have to be done at a certain time, or every so often. If the task is to be done by a process, we do it by putting it in the crontab file. If the task is to be done by a kernel module, we have two possibilities. The first is to put a process in the crontab file which will wake up the module by a system call when necessary, for example by opening a file. This is terribly inefficient, however -- we run a new process off of crontab, read a new executable to memory, and all this just to wake up a kernel module which is in memory anyway.

Instead of doing that, we can create a function that will be called once for every timer interrupt. The way we do this is we create a task, held in a tq_struct structure, which will hold a pointer to the function. Then, we use queue_task to put that task on a task list called tq_timer, which is the list of tasks to be executed on the next timer interrupt. Because we want the function to keep on being executed, we need to put it back on tq_timer whenever it is called, for the next timer interrupt.

There's one more point we need to remember here. When a module is removed by rmmod, first its reference count is checked. If it is zero, module_cleanup is called. Then, the module is removed from memory with all its functions. Nobody checks to see if the timer's task list happens to contain a pointer to one of those functions, which will no longer be available. Ages later (from the computer's perspective, from a human perspective it's nothing, less than a hundredth of a second), the kernel has a timer interrupt and tries to call the function on the task list. Unfortunately, the function is no longer there. In most cases, the memory page where it sat is unused, and you get an ugly error message. But if some other code is now sitting at the same memory location, things could get very ugly. Unfortunately, we don't have an easy way to unregister a task from a task list.


Example 11-1. sched.c

/*  sched.c - scheduale a function to be called on every timer interrupt.
 *  Copyright (C) 2001 by Peter Jay Salzman

/* The necessary header files */

/* Standard in kernel modules */

#include <linux/modversions.h>

/* Necessary because we use the proc fs */
#include <linux/proc_fs.h>

/* We scheduale tasks here */
#include <linux/tqueue.h>

/* We also need the ability to put ourselves to sleep and wake up later */
#include <linux/sched.h>

/* In 2.2.3 /usr/include/linux/version.h includes a macro for this, but
 * 2.0.35 doesn't - so I add it here if necessary.

/* The number of times the timer interrupt has been called so far */
static int TimerIntrpt = 0;

/* This is used by cleanup, to prevent the module from being unloaded while
 * intrpt_routine is still in the task queue
static struct wait_queue *WaitQ = NULL;

static void intrpt_routine(void *);

/* The task queue structure for this task, from tqueue.h */
static struct tq_struct Task = {
   NULL,          /* Next item in list - queue_task will do this for us */
   0,             /* A flag meaning we haven't been inserted into a task
                   * queue yet 
   intrpt_routine, /* The function to run */
   NULL            /* The void* parameter for that function */

/* This function will be called on every timer interrupt. Notice the void*
 * pointer - task functions can be used for more than one purpose, each time 
 * getting a different parameter.
static void intrpt_routine(void *irrelevant)
   /* Increment the counter */

   /* If cleanup wants us to die */
   if (WaitQ != NULL) 
      wake_up(&WaitQ);               /* Now cleanup_module can return */
      /* Put ourselves back in the task queue */
      queue_task(&Task, &tq_timer);  

/* Put data into the proc fs file. */
int procfile_read(char *buffer, 
                  char **buffer_location, off_t offset, 
                  int buffer_length, int zero)
   int len;  /* The number of bytes actually used */

   /* It's static so it will still be in memory when we leave this function
   static char my_buffer[80];  

   static int count = 1;

   /* We give all of our information in one go, so if the anybody asks us
    * if we have more information the answer should always be no. 
   if (offset > 0)
      return 0;

   /* Fill the buffer and get its length */
   len = sprintf(my_buffer, "Timer called %d times so far\n", TimerIntrpt);

   /* Tell the function which called us where the buffer is */
   *buffer_location = my_buffer;

   /* Return the length */
   return len;

struct proc_dir_entry Our_Proc_File = {
   0,  /* Inode number - ignore, it'll be filled by proc_register_dynamic */
   5,                 /* Length of the file name */
   "sched",           /* The file name */
   S_IFREG | S_IRUGO, /* File mode - this is a regular file which can be
                       * read by its owner, its group, and everybody else
   1,      /* Number of links (directories where the file is referenced) */
   0, 0,             /* The uid and gid for the file - we give it to root */
   80,               /* The size of the file reported by ls. */
   NULL, /* functions which can be done on the inode (linking, removing,
          * etc). - we don't * support any.
   procfile_read,  /* The read function for this file, the function called
									  * when somebody tries to read something from it.
   NULL /* We could have here a function to fill the file's inode, to
         * enable us to play with permissions, ownership, etc.

/* Initialize the module - register the proc file */
int init_module()
   /* Put the task in the tq_timer task queue, so it will be executed at
    * next timer interrupt
   queue_task(&Task, &tq_timer);

   /* Success if proc_register_dynamic is a success, failure otherwise */
   return proc_register(&proc_root, &Our_Proc_File);
   return proc_register_dynamic(&proc_root, &Our_Proc_File);

/* Cleanup */
void cleanup_module()
   /* Unregister our /proc file */
   proc_unregister(&proc_root, Our_Proc_File.low_ino);
   /* Sleep until intrpt_routine is called one last time. This is necessary,
    * because otherwise we'll deallocate the memory holding intrpt_routine
    * and Task while tq_timer still references them.  Notice that here we
    * don't allow signals to interrupt us. 
    * Since WaitQ is now not NULL, this automatically tells the interrupt
    * routine it's time to die.



They're really the same.