From 27ed44a5d6d88897002b75f53004d4c565a5aab6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Herbert Xu Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2015 13:37:30 +1100 Subject: [PATCH] rhashtable: Add comment on choice of elasticity value This patch adds a comment on the choice of the value 16 as the maximum chain length before we force a rehash. Signed-off-by: Herbert Xu Signed-off-by: David S. Miller --- lib/rhashtable.c | 12 ++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+) diff --git a/lib/rhashtable.c b/lib/rhashtable.c index e96ad1a52c90..8514f7c5f029 100644 --- a/lib/rhashtable.c +++ b/lib/rhashtable.c @@ -736,6 +736,18 @@ int rhashtable_init(struct rhashtable *ht, ht->p.min_size = max(ht->p.min_size, HASH_MIN_SIZE); + /* The maximum (not average) chain length grows with the + * size of the hash table, at a rate of (log N)/(log log N). + * The value of 16 is selected so that even if the hash + * table grew to 2^32 you would not expect the maximum + * chain length to exceed it unless we are under attack + * (or extremely unlucky). + * + * As this limit is only to detect attacks, we don't need + * to set it to a lower value as you'd need the chain + * length to vastly exceed 16 to have any real effect + * on the system. + */ if (!params->insecure_elasticity) ht->elasticity = 16; -- 2.30.2