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sched: 1Q08 RCU doc update, add call_rcu_sched()

Long-delayed update to the RCU documentation, including adding the new
call_rcu_sched() and rcu_barrier_sched() APIs.

Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
hifive-unleashed-5.1
Paul E. McKenney 2008-05-12 21:21:05 +02:00 committed by Ingo Molnar
parent 2326974df2
commit 32300751b4
4 changed files with 212 additions and 50 deletions

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@ -93,6 +93,9 @@ Since NMI handlers disable preemption, synchronize_sched() is guaranteed
not to return until all ongoing NMI handlers exit. It is therefore safe
to free up the handler's data as soon as synchronize_sched() returns.
Important note: for this to work, the architecture in question must
invoke irq_enter() and irq_exit() on NMI entry and exit, respectively.
Answer to Quick Quiz

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@ -52,6 +52,10 @@ of each iteration. Unfortunately, chaotic relaxation requires highly
structured data, such as the matrices used in scientific programs, and
is thus inapplicable to most data structures in operating-system kernels.
In 1992, Henry (now Alexia) Massalin completed a dissertation advising
parallel programmers to defer processing when feasible to simplify
synchronization. RCU makes extremely heavy use of this advice.
In 1993, Jacobson [Jacobson93] verbally described what is perhaps the
simplest deferred-free technique: simply waiting a fixed amount of time
before freeing blocks awaiting deferred free. Jacobson did not describe
@ -138,6 +142,13 @@ blocking in read-side critical sections appeared [PaulEMcKenney2006c],
Robert Olsson described an RCU-protected trie-hash combination
[RobertOlsson2006a].
2007 saw the journal version of the award-winning RCU paper from 2006
[ThomasEHart2007a], as well as a paper demonstrating use of Promela
and Spin to mechanically verify an optimization to Oleg Nesterov's
QRCU [PaulEMcKenney2007QRCUspin], a design document describing
preemptible RCU [PaulEMcKenney2007PreemptibleRCU], and the three-part
LWN "What is RCU?" series [PaulEMcKenney2007WhatIsRCUFundamentally,
PaulEMcKenney2008WhatIsRCUUsage, and PaulEMcKenney2008WhatIsRCUAPI].
Bibtex Entries
@ -202,6 +213,20 @@ Bibtex Entries
,Year="1991"
}
@phdthesis{HMassalinPhD
,author="H. Massalin"
,title="Synthesis: An Efficient Implementation of Fundamental Operating
System Services"
,school="Columbia University"
,address="New York, NY"
,year="1992"
,annotation="
Mondo optimizing compiler.
Wait-free stuff.
Good advice: defer work to avoid synchronization.
"
}
@unpublished{Jacobson93
,author="Van Jacobson"
,title="Avoid Read-Side Locking Via Delayed Free"
@ -635,3 +660,86 @@ Revised:
"
}
@unpublished{PaulEMcKenney2007PreemptibleRCU
,Author="Paul E. McKenney"
,Title="The design of preemptible read-copy-update"
,month="October"
,day="8"
,year="2007"
,note="Available:
\url{http://lwn.net/Articles/253651/}
[Viewed October 25, 2007]"
,annotation="
LWN article describing the design of preemptible RCU.
"
}
########################################################################
#
# "What is RCU?" LWN series.
#
@unpublished{PaulEMcKenney2007WhatIsRCUFundamentally
,Author="Paul E. McKenney and Jonathan Walpole"
,Title="What is {RCU}, Fundamentally?"
,month="December"
,day="17"
,year="2007"
,note="Available:
\url{http://lwn.net/Articles/262464/}
[Viewed December 27, 2007]"
,annotation="
Lays out the three basic components of RCU: (1) publish-subscribe,
(2) wait for pre-existing readers to complete, and (2) maintain
multiple versions.
"
}
@unpublished{PaulEMcKenney2008WhatIsRCUUsage
,Author="Paul E. McKenney"
,Title="What is {RCU}? Part 2: Usage"
,month="January"
,day="4"
,year="2008"
,note="Available:
\url{http://lwn.net/Articles/263130/}
[Viewed January 4, 2008]"
,annotation="
Lays out six uses of RCU:
1. RCU is a Reader-Writer Lock Replacement
2. RCU is a Restricted Reference-Counting Mechanism
3. RCU is a Bulk Reference-Counting Mechanism
4. RCU is a Poor Man's Garbage Collector
5. RCU is a Way of Providing Existence Guarantees
6. RCU is a Way of Waiting for Things to Finish
"
}
@unpublished{PaulEMcKenney2008WhatIsRCUAPI
,Author="Paul E. McKenney"
,Title="{RCU} part 3: the {RCU} {API}"
,month="January"
,day="17"
,year="2008"
,note="Available:
\url{http://lwn.net/Articles/264090/}
[Viewed January 10, 2008]"
,annotation="
Gives an overview of the Linux-kernel RCU API and a brief annotated RCU
bibliography.
"
}
@article{DinakarGuniguntala2008IBMSysJ
,author="D. Guniguntala and P. E. McKenney and J. Triplett and J. Walpole"
,title="The read-copy-update mechanism for supporting real-time applications on shared-memory multiprocessor systems with {Linux}"
,Year="2008"
,Month="April"
,journal="IBM Systems Journal"
,volume="47"
,number="2"
,pages="@@-@@"
,annotation="
RCU, realtime RCU, sleepable RCU, performance.
"
}

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@ -13,10 +13,13 @@ over a rather long period of time, but improvements are always welcome!
detailed performance measurements show that RCU is nonetheless
the right tool for the job.
The other exception would be where performance is not an issue,
and RCU provides a simpler implementation. An example of this
situation is the dynamic NMI code in the Linux 2.6 kernel,
at least on architectures where NMIs are rare.
Another exception is where performance is not an issue, and RCU
provides a simpler implementation. An example of this situation
is the dynamic NMI code in the Linux 2.6 kernel, at least on
architectures where NMIs are rare.
Yet another exception is where the low real-time latency of RCU's
read-side primitives is critically important.
1. Does the update code have proper mutual exclusion?
@ -39,9 +42,10 @@ over a rather long period of time, but improvements are always welcome!
2. Do the RCU read-side critical sections make proper use of
rcu_read_lock() and friends? These primitives are needed
to suppress preemption (or bottom halves, in the case of
rcu_read_lock_bh()) in the read-side critical sections,
and are also an excellent aid to readability.
to prevent grace periods from ending prematurely, which
could result in data being unceremoniously freed out from
under your read-side code, which can greatly increase the
actuarial risk of your kernel.
As a rough rule of thumb, any dereference of an RCU-protected
pointer must be covered by rcu_read_lock() or rcu_read_lock_bh()
@ -54,15 +58,30 @@ over a rather long period of time, but improvements are always welcome!
be running while updates are in progress. There are a number
of ways to handle this concurrency, depending on the situation:
a. Make updates appear atomic to readers. For example,
a. Use the RCU variants of the list and hlist update
primitives to add, remove, and replace elements on an
RCU-protected list. Alternatively, use the RCU-protected
trees that have been added to the Linux kernel.
This is almost always the best approach.
b. Proceed as in (a) above, but also maintain per-element
locks (that are acquired by both readers and writers)
that guard per-element state. Of course, fields that
the readers refrain from accessing can be guarded by the
update-side lock.
This works quite well, also.
c. Make updates appear atomic to readers. For example,
pointer updates to properly aligned fields will appear
atomic, as will individual atomic primitives. Operations
performed under a lock and sequences of multiple atomic
primitives will -not- appear to be atomic.
This is almost always the best approach.
This can work, but is starting to get a bit tricky.
b. Carefully order the updates and the reads so that
d. Carefully order the updates and the reads so that
readers see valid data at all phases of the update.
This is often more difficult than it sounds, especially
given modern CPUs' tendency to reorder memory references.
@ -123,18 +142,22 @@ over a rather long period of time, but improvements are always welcome!
when publicizing a pointer to a structure that can
be traversed by an RCU read-side critical section.
5. If call_rcu(), or a related primitive such as call_rcu_bh(),
is used, the callback function must be written to be called
from softirq context. In particular, it cannot block.
5. If call_rcu(), or a related primitive such as call_rcu_bh() or
call_rcu_sched(), is used, the callback function must be
written to be called from softirq context. In particular,
it cannot block.
6. Since synchronize_rcu() can block, it cannot be called from
any sort of irq context.
any sort of irq context. Ditto for synchronize_sched() and
synchronize_srcu().
7. If the updater uses call_rcu(), then the corresponding readers
must use rcu_read_lock() and rcu_read_unlock(). If the updater
uses call_rcu_bh(), then the corresponding readers must use
rcu_read_lock_bh() and rcu_read_unlock_bh(). Mixing things up
will result in confusion and broken kernels.
rcu_read_lock_bh() and rcu_read_unlock_bh(). If the updater
uses call_rcu_sched(), then the corresponding readers must
disable preemption. Mixing things up will result in confusion
and broken kernels.
One exception to this rule: rcu_read_lock() and rcu_read_unlock()
may be substituted for rcu_read_lock_bh() and rcu_read_unlock_bh()
@ -143,9 +166,9 @@ over a rather long period of time, but improvements are always welcome!
such cases is a must, of course! And the jury is still out on
whether the increased speed is worth it.
8. Although synchronize_rcu() is a bit slower than is call_rcu(),
it usually results in simpler code. So, unless update
performance is critically important or the updaters cannot block,
8. Although synchronize_rcu() is slower than is call_rcu(), it
usually results in simpler code. So, unless update performance
is critically important or the updaters cannot block,
synchronize_rcu() should be used in preference to call_rcu().
An especially important property of the synchronize_rcu()
@ -187,23 +210,23 @@ over a rather long period of time, but improvements are always welcome!
number of updates per grace period.
9. All RCU list-traversal primitives, which include
list_for_each_rcu(), list_for_each_entry_rcu(),
rcu_dereference(), list_for_each_rcu(), list_for_each_entry_rcu(),
list_for_each_continue_rcu(), and list_for_each_safe_rcu(),
must be within an RCU read-side critical section. RCU
must be either within an RCU read-side critical section or
must be protected by appropriate update-side locks. RCU
read-side critical sections are delimited by rcu_read_lock()
and rcu_read_unlock(), or by similar primitives such as
rcu_read_lock_bh() and rcu_read_unlock_bh().
Use of the _rcu() list-traversal primitives outside of an
RCU read-side critical section causes no harm other than
a slight performance degradation on Alpha CPUs. It can
also be quite helpful in reducing code bloat when common
code is shared between readers and updaters.
The reason that it is permissible to use RCU list-traversal
primitives when the update-side lock is held is that doing so
can be quite helpful in reducing code bloat when common code is
shared between readers and updaters.
10. Conversely, if you are in an RCU read-side critical section,
you -must- use the "_rcu()" variants of the list macros.
Failing to do so will break Alpha and confuse people reading
your code.
and you don't hold the appropriate update-side lock, you -must-
use the "_rcu()" variants of the list macros. Failing to do so
will break Alpha and confuse people reading your code.
11. Note that synchronize_rcu() -only- guarantees to wait until
all currently executing rcu_read_lock()-protected RCU read-side
@ -230,6 +253,14 @@ over a rather long period of time, but improvements are always welcome!
must use whatever locking or other synchronization is required
to safely access and/or modify that data structure.
RCU callbacks are -usually- executed on the same CPU that executed
the corresponding call_rcu(), call_rcu_bh(), or call_rcu_sched(),
but are by -no- means guaranteed to be. For example, if a given
CPU goes offline while having an RCU callback pending, then that
RCU callback will execute on some surviving CPU. (If this was
not the case, a self-spawning RCU callback would prevent the
victim CPU from ever going offline.)
14. SRCU (srcu_read_lock(), srcu_read_unlock(), and synchronize_srcu())
may only be invoked from process context. Unlike other forms of
RCU, it -is- permissible to block in an SRCU read-side critical

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@ -1,3 +1,11 @@
Please note that the "What is RCU?" LWN series is an excellent place
to start learning about RCU:
1. What is RCU, Fundamentally? http://lwn.net/Articles/262464/
2. What is RCU? Part 2: Usage http://lwn.net/Articles/263130/
3. RCU part 3: the RCU API http://lwn.net/Articles/264090/
What is RCU?
RCU is a synchronization mechanism that was added to the Linux kernel
@ -772,26 +780,18 @@ Linux-kernel source code, but it helps to have a full list of the
APIs, since there does not appear to be a way to categorize them
in docbook. Here is the list, by category.
Markers for RCU read-side critical sections:
rcu_read_lock
rcu_read_unlock
rcu_read_lock_bh
rcu_read_unlock_bh
srcu_read_lock
srcu_read_unlock
RCU pointer/list traversal:
rcu_dereference
list_for_each_rcu (to be deprecated in favor of
list_for_each_entry_rcu)
list_for_each_entry_rcu
list_for_each_continue_rcu (to be deprecated in favor of new
list_for_each_entry_continue_rcu)
hlist_for_each_entry_rcu
RCU pointer update:
list_for_each_rcu (to be deprecated in favor of
list_for_each_entry_rcu)
list_for_each_continue_rcu (to be deprecated in favor of new
list_for_each_entry_continue_rcu)
RCU pointer/list update:
rcu_assign_pointer
list_add_rcu
@ -799,16 +799,36 @@ RCU pointer update:
list_del_rcu
list_replace_rcu
hlist_del_rcu
hlist_add_after_rcu
hlist_add_before_rcu
hlist_add_head_rcu
hlist_replace_rcu
list_splice_init_rcu()
RCU grace period:
RCU: Critical sections Grace period Barrier
rcu_read_lock synchronize_net rcu_barrier
rcu_read_unlock synchronize_rcu
call_rcu
bh: Critical sections Grace period Barrier
rcu_read_lock_bh call_rcu_bh rcu_barrier_bh
rcu_read_unlock_bh
sched: Critical sections Grace period Barrier
[preempt_disable] synchronize_sched rcu_barrier_sched
[and friends] call_rcu_sched
SRCU: Critical sections Grace period Barrier
srcu_read_lock synchronize_srcu N/A
srcu_read_unlock
synchronize_net
synchronize_sched
synchronize_rcu
synchronize_srcu
call_rcu
call_rcu_bh
See the comment headers in the source code (or the docbook generated
from them) for more information.