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author | David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> | 2009-04-28 15:01:38 +0100 |
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committer | Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu> | 2009-04-29 14:15:55 +0200 |
commit | 50fa610a3b6ba7cf91d7a92229177dfaff2b81a1 (patch) | |
tree | 0369fc3269a18f8d2ffcedaebe4ac875bbe9870c /Documentation/memory-barriers.txt | |
parent | 56a50adda49b2020156616c4eb15353e0f9ad7de (diff) | |
download | op-kernel-dev-50fa610a3b6ba7cf91d7a92229177dfaff2b81a1.zip op-kernel-dev-50fa610a3b6ba7cf91d7a92229177dfaff2b81a1.tar.gz |
sched: Document memory barriers implied by sleep/wake-up primitives
Add a section to the memory barriers document to note the implied
memory barriers of sleep primitives (set_current_state() and wrappers)
and wake-up primitives (wake_up() and co.).
Also extend the in-code comments on the wake_up() functions to note
these implied barriers.
[ Impact: add documentation ]
Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
LKML-Reference: <20090428140138.1192.94723.stgit@warthog.procyon.org.uk>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/memory-barriers.txt')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/memory-barriers.txt | 129 |
1 files changed, 128 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt index f5b7127..7f5809e 100644 --- a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt +++ b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt @@ -31,6 +31,7 @@ Contents: - Locking functions. - Interrupt disabling functions. + - Sleep and wake-up functions. - Miscellaneous functions. (*) Inter-CPU locking barrier effects. @@ -1217,6 +1218,132 @@ barriers are required in such a situation, they must be provided from some other means. +SLEEP AND WAKE-UP FUNCTIONS +--------------------------- + +Sleeping and waking on an event flagged in global data can be viewed as an +interaction between two pieces of data: the task state of the task waiting for +the event and the global data used to indicate the event. To make sure that +these appear to happen in the right order, the primitives to begin the process +of going to sleep, and the primitives to initiate a wake up imply certain +barriers. + +Firstly, the sleeper normally follows something like this sequence of events: + + for (;;) { + set_current_state(TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE); + if (event_indicated) + break; + schedule(); + } + +A general memory barrier is interpolated automatically by set_current_state() +after it has altered the task state: + + CPU 1 + =============================== + set_current_state(); + set_mb(); + STORE current->state + <general barrier> + LOAD event_indicated + +set_current_state() may be wrapped by: + + prepare_to_wait(); + prepare_to_wait_exclusive(); + +which therefore also imply a general memory barrier after setting the state. +The whole sequence above is available in various canned forms, all of which +interpolate the memory barrier in the right place: + + wait_event(); + wait_event_interruptible(); + wait_event_interruptible_exclusive(); + wait_event_interruptible_timeout(); + wait_event_killable(); + wait_event_timeout(); + wait_on_bit(); + wait_on_bit_lock(); + + +Secondly, code that performs a wake up normally follows something like this: + + event_indicated = 1; + wake_up(&event_wait_queue); + +or: + + event_indicated = 1; + wake_up_process(event_daemon); + +A write memory barrier is implied by wake_up() and co. if and only if they wake +something up. The barrier occurs before the task state is cleared, and so sits +between the STORE to indicate the event and the STORE to set TASK_RUNNING: + + CPU 1 CPU 2 + =============================== =============================== + set_current_state(); STORE event_indicated + set_mb(); wake_up(); + STORE current->state <write barrier> + <general barrier> STORE current->state + LOAD event_indicated + +The available waker functions include: + + complete(); + wake_up(); + wake_up_all(); + wake_up_bit(); + wake_up_interruptible(); + wake_up_interruptible_all(); + wake_up_interruptible_nr(); + wake_up_interruptible_poll(); + wake_up_interruptible_sync(); + wake_up_interruptible_sync_poll(); + wake_up_locked(); + wake_up_locked_poll(); + wake_up_nr(); + wake_up_poll(); + wake_up_process(); + + +[!] Note that the memory barriers implied by the sleeper and the waker do _not_ +order multiple stores before the wake-up with respect to loads of those stored +values after the sleeper has called set_current_state(). For instance, if the +sleeper does: + + set_current_state(TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE); + if (event_indicated) + break; + __set_current_state(TASK_RUNNING); + do_something(my_data); + +and the waker does: + + my_data = value; + event_indicated = 1; + wake_up(&event_wait_queue); + +there's no guarantee that the change to event_indicated will be perceived by +the sleeper as coming after the change to my_data. In such a circumstance, the +code on both sides must interpolate its own memory barriers between the +separate data accesses. Thus the above sleeper ought to do: + + set_current_state(TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE); + if (event_indicated) { + smp_rmb(); + do_something(my_data); + } + +and the waker should do: + + my_data = value; + smp_wmb(); + event_indicated = 1; + wake_up(&event_wait_queue); + + MISCELLANEOUS FUNCTIONS ----------------------- @@ -1366,7 +1493,7 @@ WHERE ARE MEMORY BARRIERS NEEDED? Under normal operation, memory operation reordering is generally not going to be a problem as a single-threaded linear piece of code will still appear to -work correctly, even if it's in an SMP kernel. There are, however, three +work correctly, even if it's in an SMP kernel. There are, however, four circumstances in which reordering definitely _could_ be a problem: (*) Interprocessor interaction. |