Re: [RFC PATCH v3 00/59] struct filename work

Linus Torvalds <[email protected]> Tue, 16 Dec 2025 16:32:03 +1200

Newsgroups	org.kernel.vger.audit,org.kernel.vger.io-uring,org.kernel.vger.linux-fsdevel,org.kernel.vger.linux-kernel
Message-ID	<CAHk-=wi4j0+zDZPTr4-fyEE4qzHwNdVOwCSuPoJ4w0fpDZcDRQ@mail.gmail.com>

So I like the whole series, but..

On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 at 15:56, Al Viro <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>   struct filename ->refcnt doesn't need to be atomic

Does ->refcnt need to exist _at_all_ if audit isn't enabled?

Are there any other users of it? Maybe I missed some?

Because I'm wondering if we could just encapsulate the thing entirely
in some #ifdef CONFIG_AUDIT check.

Now, I think absolutely everybody does enable audit, so it's not
because I'd try to save one word of memory and a few tests, it's more
of a "could we make it very explicit that all that code is purely
about the audit case"?

                    Linus