$Id: SMPNOTES,v 1.1.1.4 2003/10/14 08:09:37 sparq Exp $

Notes on the (20000210) SMP-ization of the bridging code:

Each bridge has a hash table of MAC addresses. This table is protected
by a rwlock hash_lock. The entries are refcounted; 'getting' an entry
is done in the usual way: read_lock the table, find the entry,
increment it's refcount and unlock the table. Bottom half context
acquires this lock in read as well as write mode, therefore we always
need to locally disable BHs when acquiring this lock.

Each bridge also has an rwlock called lock. This slightly misnamed
lock protects the bridge's port_list. All stp code acquires this lock
in read mode, the only piece of code that acquires this lock in write
mode is the ioctl code (br_ioctl.c). Bottom halves never acquire this
lock in write mode, therefore we can use read_lock instead of
read_lock_bh in all cases.

All ioctls are globally serialized by the semaphore ioctl_mutex. All
code which acquires the bridge lock in write mode also acquires
ioctl_mutex. Therefore, if we have already grabbed ioctl_mutex we
don't need to read_lock the bridge lock anymore; the ioctl_mutex will
protect against concurrent writers.
