[PATCH] sysctl: keep track of tree relationships

In a sense, that's the heart of the series.  It's based on the following
property of the trees we are actually asked to add: they can be split into
stem that is already covered by registered trees and crown that is entirely
new.  IOW, if a/b and a/c/d are introduced by our tree, then a/c is also
introduced by it.

That allows to associate tree and table entry with each node in the union;
while directory nodes might be covered by many trees, only one will cover
the node by its crown.  And that will allow much saner logics for /proc/sys
in the next patches.  This patch introduces the data structures needed to
keep track of that.

When adding a sysctl table, we find a "parent" one.  Which is to say,
find the deepest node on its stem that already is present in one of the
tables from our table set or its ancestor sets.  That table will be our
parent and that node in it - attachment point.  Add our table to list
anchored in parent, have it refer the parent and contents of attachment
point.  Also remember where its crown lives.

Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>

1 files changed, 3 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/include/linux/sysctl.h b/include/linux/sysctl.h
index 956264d09ba0..3f6599aeb0db 100644
--- a/include/linux/sysctl.h
+++ b/include/linux/sysctl.h
@@ -1083,6 +1083,9 @@ struct ctl_table_header
 	struct ctl_table *ctl_table_arg;
 	struct ctl_table_root *root;
 	struct ctl_table_set *set;
+	struct ctl_table *attached_by;
+	struct ctl_table *attached_to;
+	struct ctl_table_header *parent;
 };
 
 /* struct ctl_path describes where in the hierarchy a table is added */