device_cgroup: remove branch hint after code refactor
commit
4ef4ac360101 ("device_cgroup: avoid access to ->i_rdev in the
common case in devcgroup_inode_permission()") reordered the checks in
devcgroup_inode_permission() to check the inode mode before checking
i_rdev, for better cache behavior.
However, the likely() annotation on the i_rdev check was not updated
to reflect the new code flow. Originally, when i_rdev was checked
first, likely(!inode->i_rdev) made sense because most inodes were(?)
regular files/directories, thus i_rdev == 0.
After the reorder, by the time we reach the i_rdev check, we have
already confirmed the inode IS a block or character device. Block and
character special files are precisely defined by having a device number
(i_rdev), so !inode->i_rdev is now the rare edge case, not the common
case.
Branch profiling confirmed this is 100% mispredicted:
correct incorrect % Function File Line
------- --------- - -------- ---- ----
0
2631904 100 devcgroup_inode_permission device_cgroup.h 24
Remove likely() to avoid giving the wrong hint to the CPU.
Fixes: 4ef4ac360101 ("device_cgroup: avoid access to ->i_rdev in the common case in devcgroup_inode_permission()")
Signed-off-by: Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260107-likely_device-v1-1-0c55f83a7e47@debian.org
Reviewed-by: Mateusz Guzik <mjguzik@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>