diff mbox

[v3,11/41] mips: reuse asm-generic/barrier.h

Message ID 20160115173912.GU3818@linux.vnet.ibm.com (mailing list archive)
State Not Applicable
Delegated to: Simon Horman
Headers show

Commit Message

Paul E. McKenney Jan. 15, 2016, 5:39 p.m. UTC
On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 09:55:54AM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 01:29:13PM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > So smp_mb() provides transitivity, as do pairs of smp_store_release()
> > and smp_read_acquire(), 
> 
> But they provide different grades of transitivity, which is where all
> the confusion lays.
> 
> smp_mb() is strongly/globally transitive, all CPUs will agree on the order.
> 
> Whereas the RCpc release+acquire is weakly so, only the two cpus
> involved in the handover will agree on the order.

Good point!

Using grace periods in place of smp_mb() also provides strong/global
transitivity, but also insanely high latencies.  ;-)

The patch below updates Documentation/memory-barriers.txt to define
local vs. global transitivity.  The corresponding ppcmem litmus test
is included below as well.

Should we start putting litmus tests for the various examples
somewhere, perhaps in a litmus-tests directory within each participating
architecture?  I have a pile of powerpc-related litmus tests on my laptop,
but they probably aren't doing all that much good there.

							Thanx, Paul

------------------------------------------------------------------------

PPC local-transitive
""
{
0:r1=1; 0:r2=u; 0:r3=v; 0:r4=x; 0:r5=y; 0:r6=z;
1:r1=1; 1:r2=u; 1:r3=v; 1:r4=x; 1:r5=y; 1:r6=z;
2:r1=1; 2:r2=u; 2:r3=v; 2:r4=x; 2:r5=y; 2:r6=z;
3:r1=1; 3:r2=u; 3:r3=v; 3:r4=x; 3:r5=y; 3:r6=z;
}
 P0           | P1           | P2           | P3           ;
 lwz r9,0(r4) | lwz r9,0(r5) | lwz r9,0(r6) | stw r1,0(r3) ;
 lwsync       | lwsync       | lwsync       | sync         ;
 stw r1,0(r2) | lwz r8,0(r3) | stw r1,0(r7) | lwz r9,0(r2) ;
 lwsync       | lwz r7,0(r2) |              |              ;
 stw r1,0(r5) | lwsync       |              |              ;
              | stw r1,0(r6) |              |              ;
exists
(* (0:r9=0 /\ 1:r9=1 /\ 2:r9=1 /\ 1:r8=0 /\ 3:r9=0) *)
(* (0:r9=1 /\ 1:r9=1 /\ 2:r9=1) *)
(* (0:r9=0 /\ 1:r9=1 /\ 2:r9=1 /\ 1:r7=0) *)
(0:r9=0 /\ 1:r9=1 /\ 2:r9=1 /\ 1:r7=0)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

commit 2cb4e83a1b5c89c8e39b8a64bd89269d05913e41
Author: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Date:   Fri Jan 15 09:30:42 2016 -0800

    documentation: Distinguish between local and global transitivity
    
    The introduction of smp_load_acquire() and smp_store_release() had
    the side effect of introducing a weaker notion of transitivity:
    The transitivity of full smp_mb() barriers is global, but that
    of smp_store_release()/smp_load_acquire() chains is local.  This
    commit therefore introduces the notion of local transitivity and
    gives an example.
    
    Reported-by: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
    Reported-by: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
    Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>


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Comments

Peter Zijlstra Jan. 15, 2016, 9:29 p.m. UTC | #1
On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 09:39:12AM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> Should we start putting litmus tests for the various examples
> somewhere, perhaps in a litmus-tests directory within each participating
> architecture?  I have a pile of powerpc-related litmus tests on my laptop,
> but they probably aren't doing all that much good there.

Yeah, or a version of them in C that we can 'compile'?
> 
> commit 2cb4e83a1b5c89c8e39b8a64bd89269d05913e41
> Author: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
> Date:   Fri Jan 15 09:30:42 2016 -0800
> 
>     documentation: Distinguish between local and global transitivity
>     
>     The introduction of smp_load_acquire() and smp_store_release() had
>     the side effect of introducing a weaker notion of transitivity:
>     The transitivity of full smp_mb() barriers is global, but that
>     of smp_store_release()/smp_load_acquire() chains is local.  This
>     commit therefore introduces the notion of local transitivity and
>     gives an example.
>     
>     Reported-by: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
>     Reported-by: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
>     Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>

I think it fails to mention smp_mb__after_release_acquire(), although I
suspect we didn't actually introduce the primitive yet, which raises the
point, do we want to?
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Paul E. McKenney Jan. 15, 2016, 10:01 p.m. UTC | #2
On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 10:29:12PM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 09:39:12AM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > Should we start putting litmus tests for the various examples
> > somewhere, perhaps in a litmus-tests directory within each participating
> > architecture?  I have a pile of powerpc-related litmus tests on my laptop,
> > but they probably aren't doing all that much good there.
> 
> Yeah, or a version of them in C that we can 'compile'?

That would be good as well.  I am guessing that architecture-specific
litmus tests will also be needed, but you are right that
architecture-independent versions are higher priority.

> > commit 2cb4e83a1b5c89c8e39b8a64bd89269d05913e41
> > Author: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
> > Date:   Fri Jan 15 09:30:42 2016 -0800
> > 
> >     documentation: Distinguish between local and global transitivity
> >     
> >     The introduction of smp_load_acquire() and smp_store_release() had
> >     the side effect of introducing a weaker notion of transitivity:
> >     The transitivity of full smp_mb() barriers is global, but that
> >     of smp_store_release()/smp_load_acquire() chains is local.  This
> >     commit therefore introduces the notion of local transitivity and
> >     gives an example.
> >     
> >     Reported-by: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
> >     Reported-by: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
> >     Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
> 
> I think it fails to mention smp_mb__after_release_acquire(), although I
> suspect we didn't actually introduce the primitive yet, which raises the
> point, do we want to?

Well, it is not in v4.4.  I believe that we need good use cases before
we add it.

							Thanx, Paul

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Will Deacon Jan. 25, 2016, 6:02 p.m. UTC | #3
Hi Paul,

On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 09:39:12AM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 09:55:54AM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 01:29:13PM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > > So smp_mb() provides transitivity, as do pairs of smp_store_release()
> > > and smp_read_acquire(), 
> > 
> > But they provide different grades of transitivity, which is where all
> > the confusion lays.
> > 
> > smp_mb() is strongly/globally transitive, all CPUs will agree on the order.
> > 
> > Whereas the RCpc release+acquire is weakly so, only the two cpus
> > involved in the handover will agree on the order.
> 
> Good point!
> 
> Using grace periods in place of smp_mb() also provides strong/global
> transitivity, but also insanely high latencies.  ;-)
> 
> The patch below updates Documentation/memory-barriers.txt to define
> local vs. global transitivity.  The corresponding ppcmem litmus test
> is included below as well.
> 
> Should we start putting litmus tests for the various examples
> somewhere, perhaps in a litmus-tests directory within each participating
> architecture?  I have a pile of powerpc-related litmus tests on my laptop,
> but they probably aren't doing all that much good there.

I too would like to have the litmus tests in the kernel so that we can
refer to them from memory-barriers.txt. Ideally they wouldn't be targetted
to a particular arch, however.

> PPC local-transitive
> ""
> {
> 0:r1=1; 0:r2=u; 0:r3=v; 0:r4=x; 0:r5=y; 0:r6=z;
> 1:r1=1; 1:r2=u; 1:r3=v; 1:r4=x; 1:r5=y; 1:r6=z;
> 2:r1=1; 2:r2=u; 2:r3=v; 2:r4=x; 2:r5=y; 2:r6=z;
> 3:r1=1; 3:r2=u; 3:r3=v; 3:r4=x; 3:r5=y; 3:r6=z;
> }
>  P0           | P1           | P2           | P3           ;
>  lwz r9,0(r4) | lwz r9,0(r5) | lwz r9,0(r6) | stw r1,0(r3) ;
>  lwsync       | lwsync       | lwsync       | sync         ;
>  stw r1,0(r2) | lwz r8,0(r3) | stw r1,0(r7) | lwz r9,0(r2) ;
>  lwsync       | lwz r7,0(r2) |              |              ;
>  stw r1,0(r5) | lwsync       |              |              ;
>               | stw r1,0(r6) |              |              ;
> exists
> (* (0:r9=0 /\ 1:r9=1 /\ 2:r9=1 /\ 1:r8=0 /\ 3:r9=0) *)
> (* (0:r9=1 /\ 1:r9=1 /\ 2:r9=1) *)
> (* (0:r9=0 /\ 1:r9=1 /\ 2:r9=1 /\ 1:r7=0) *)
> (0:r9=0 /\ 1:r9=1 /\ 2:r9=1 /\ 1:r7=0)

i.e. we should rewrite this using READ_ONCE/WRITE_ONCE and smp_mb() etc.

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> commit 2cb4e83a1b5c89c8e39b8a64bd89269d05913e41
> Author: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
> Date:   Fri Jan 15 09:30:42 2016 -0800
> 
>     documentation: Distinguish between local and global transitivity
>     
>     The introduction of smp_load_acquire() and smp_store_release() had
>     the side effect of introducing a weaker notion of transitivity:
>     The transitivity of full smp_mb() barriers is global, but that
>     of smp_store_release()/smp_load_acquire() chains is local.  This
>     commit therefore introduces the notion of local transitivity and
>     gives an example.
>     
>     Reported-by: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
>     Reported-by: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
>     Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
> index c66ba46d8079..d8109ed99342 100644
> --- a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
> @@ -1318,8 +1318,82 @@ or a level of cache, CPU 2 might have early access to CPU 1's writes.
>  General barriers are therefore required to ensure that all CPUs agree
>  on the combined order of CPU 1's and CPU 2's accesses.
>  
> -To reiterate, if your code requires transitivity, use general barriers
> -throughout.
> +General barriers provide "global transitivity", so that all CPUs will
> +agree on the order of operations.  In contrast, a chain of release-acquire
> +pairs provides only "local transitivity", so that only those CPUs on
> +the chain are guaranteed to agree on the combined order of the accesses.

Thanks for having a go at this. I tried defining something axiomatically,
but got stuck pretty quickly. In my scheme, I used "data-directed
transitivity" instead of "local transitivity", since the latter seems to
be a bit of a misnomer.

> +For example, switching to C code in deference to Herman Hollerith:
> +
> +	int u, v, x, y, z;
> +
> +	void cpu0(void)
> +	{
> +		r0 = smp_load_acquire(&x);
> +		WRITE_ONCE(u, 1);
> +		smp_store_release(&y, 1);
> +	}
> +
> +	void cpu1(void)
> +	{
> +		r1 = smp_load_acquire(&y);
> +		r4 = READ_ONCE(v);
> +		r5 = READ_ONCE(u);
> +		smp_store_release(&z, 1);
> +	}
> +
> +	void cpu2(void)
> +	{
> +		r2 = smp_load_acquire(&z);
> +		smp_store_release(&x, 1);
> +	}
> +
> +	void cpu3(void)
> +	{
> +		WRITE_ONCE(v, 1);
> +		smp_mb();
> +		r3 = READ_ONCE(u);
> +	}
> +
> +Because cpu0(), cpu1(), and cpu2() participate in a local transitive
> +chain of smp_store_release()/smp_load_acquire() pairs, the following
> +outcome is prohibited:
> +
> +	r0 == 1 && r1 == 1 && r2 == 1
> +
> +Furthermore, because of the release-acquire relationship between cpu0()
> +and cpu1(), cpu1() must see cpu0()'s writes, so that the following
> +outcome is prohibited:
> +
> +	r1 == 1 && r5 == 0
> +
> +However, the transitivity of release-acquire is local to the participating
> +CPUs and does not apply to cpu3().  Therefore, the following outcome
> +is possible:
> +
> +	r0 == 0 && r1 == 1 && r2 == 1 && r3 == 0 && r4 == 0

I think you should be completely explicit and include r5 == 1 here, too.

Also -- where would you add the smp_mb__after_release_acquire to fix
(i.e. forbid) this? Immediately after cpu1()'s read of y?

> +Although cpu0(), cpu1(), and cpu2() will see their respective reads and
> +writes in order, CPUs not involved in the release-acquire chain might
> +well disagree on the order.  This disagreement stems from the fact that
> +the weak memory-barrier instructions used to implement smp_load_acquire()
> +and smp_store_release() are not required to order prior stores against
> +subsequent loads in all cases.  This means that cpu3() can see cpu0()'s
> +store to u as happening -after- cpu1()'s load from v, even though
> +both cpu0() and cpu1() agree that these two operations occurred in the
> +intended order.
> +
> +However, please keep in mind that smp_load_acquire() is not magic.
> +In particular, it simply reads from its argument with ordering.  It does
> +-not- ensure that any particular value will be read.  Therefore, the
> +following outcome is possible:
> +
> +	r0 == 0 && r1 == 0 && r2 == 0 && r5 == 0
> +
> +Note that this outcome can happen even on a mythical sequentially
> +consistent system where nothing is ever reordered.

I'm not sure this last bit is strictly necessary. If somebody thinks that
acquire/release involve some sort of implicit synchronisation, I think
they may have bigger problems with memory-barriers.txt.

Will
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Paul E. McKenney Jan. 26, 2016, 6:12 a.m. UTC | #4
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 06:02:34PM +0000, Will Deacon wrote:
> Hi Paul,
> 
> On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 09:39:12AM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 09:55:54AM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > > On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 01:29:13PM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > > > So smp_mb() provides transitivity, as do pairs of smp_store_release()
> > > > and smp_read_acquire(), 
> > > 
> > > But they provide different grades of transitivity, which is where all
> > > the confusion lays.
> > > 
> > > smp_mb() is strongly/globally transitive, all CPUs will agree on the order.
> > > 
> > > Whereas the RCpc release+acquire is weakly so, only the two cpus
> > > involved in the handover will agree on the order.
> > 
> > Good point!
> > 
> > Using grace periods in place of smp_mb() also provides strong/global
> > transitivity, but also insanely high latencies.  ;-)
> > 
> > The patch below updates Documentation/memory-barriers.txt to define
> > local vs. global transitivity.  The corresponding ppcmem litmus test
> > is included below as well.
> > 
> > Should we start putting litmus tests for the various examples
> > somewhere, perhaps in a litmus-tests directory within each participating
> > architecture?  I have a pile of powerpc-related litmus tests on my laptop,
> > but they probably aren't doing all that much good there.
> 
> I too would like to have the litmus tests in the kernel so that we can
> refer to them from memory-barriers.txt. Ideally they wouldn't be targetted
> to a particular arch, however.

Agreed.  Working on it...

> > PPC local-transitive
> > ""
> > {
> > 0:r1=1; 0:r2=u; 0:r3=v; 0:r4=x; 0:r5=y; 0:r6=z;
> > 1:r1=1; 1:r2=u; 1:r3=v; 1:r4=x; 1:r5=y; 1:r6=z;
> > 2:r1=1; 2:r2=u; 2:r3=v; 2:r4=x; 2:r5=y; 2:r6=z;
> > 3:r1=1; 3:r2=u; 3:r3=v; 3:r4=x; 3:r5=y; 3:r6=z;
> > }
> >  P0           | P1           | P2           | P3           ;
> >  lwz r9,0(r4) | lwz r9,0(r5) | lwz r9,0(r6) | stw r1,0(r3) ;
> >  lwsync       | lwsync       | lwsync       | sync         ;
> >  stw r1,0(r2) | lwz r8,0(r3) | stw r1,0(r7) | lwz r9,0(r2) ;
> >  lwsync       | lwz r7,0(r2) |              |              ;
> >  stw r1,0(r5) | lwsync       |              |              ;
> >               | stw r1,0(r6) |              |              ;
> > exists
> > (* (0:r9=0 /\ 1:r9=1 /\ 2:r9=1 /\ 1:r8=0 /\ 3:r9=0) *)
> > (* (0:r9=1 /\ 1:r9=1 /\ 2:r9=1) *)
> > (* (0:r9=0 /\ 1:r9=1 /\ 2:r9=1 /\ 1:r7=0) *)
> > (0:r9=0 /\ 1:r9=1 /\ 2:r9=1 /\ 1:r7=0)
> 
> i.e. we should rewrite this using READ_ONCE/WRITE_ONCE and smp_mb() etc.

Yep!

> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > commit 2cb4e83a1b5c89c8e39b8a64bd89269d05913e41
> > Author: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
> > Date:   Fri Jan 15 09:30:42 2016 -0800
> > 
> >     documentation: Distinguish between local and global transitivity
> >     
> >     The introduction of smp_load_acquire() and smp_store_release() had
> >     the side effect of introducing a weaker notion of transitivity:
> >     The transitivity of full smp_mb() barriers is global, but that
> >     of smp_store_release()/smp_load_acquire() chains is local.  This
> >     commit therefore introduces the notion of local transitivity and
> >     gives an example.
> >     
> >     Reported-by: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
> >     Reported-by: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
> >     Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
> > 
> > diff --git a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
> > index c66ba46d8079..d8109ed99342 100644
> > --- a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
> > +++ b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
> > @@ -1318,8 +1318,82 @@ or a level of cache, CPU 2 might have early access to CPU 1's writes.
> >  General barriers are therefore required to ensure that all CPUs agree
> >  on the combined order of CPU 1's and CPU 2's accesses.
> >  
> > -To reiterate, if your code requires transitivity, use general barriers
> > -throughout.
> > +General barriers provide "global transitivity", so that all CPUs will
> > +agree on the order of operations.  In contrast, a chain of release-acquire
> > +pairs provides only "local transitivity", so that only those CPUs on
> > +the chain are guaranteed to agree on the combined order of the accesses.
> 
> Thanks for having a go at this. I tried defining something axiomatically,
> but got stuck pretty quickly. In my scheme, I used "data-directed
> transitivity" instead of "local transitivity", since the latter seems to
> be a bit of a misnomer.

I figured that "local" meant local to the CPUs participating in the
release-acquire chain.  As opposed to smp_mb() chains where the ordering
is "global" as in visible to all CPUs, whether on the chain or not.
Does that help?

> > +For example, switching to C code in deference to Herman Hollerith:
> > +
> > +	int u, v, x, y, z;
> > +
> > +	void cpu0(void)
> > +	{
> > +		r0 = smp_load_acquire(&x);
> > +		WRITE_ONCE(u, 1);
> > +		smp_store_release(&y, 1);
> > +	}
> > +
> > +	void cpu1(void)
> > +	{
> > +		r1 = smp_load_acquire(&y);
> > +		r4 = READ_ONCE(v);
> > +		r5 = READ_ONCE(u);
> > +		smp_store_release(&z, 1);
> > +	}
> > +
> > +	void cpu2(void)
> > +	{
> > +		r2 = smp_load_acquire(&z);
> > +		smp_store_release(&x, 1);
> > +	}
> > +
> > +	void cpu3(void)
> > +	{
> > +		WRITE_ONCE(v, 1);
> > +		smp_mb();
> > +		r3 = READ_ONCE(u);
> > +	}
> > +
> > +Because cpu0(), cpu1(), and cpu2() participate in a local transitive
> > +chain of smp_store_release()/smp_load_acquire() pairs, the following
> > +outcome is prohibited:
> > +
> > +	r0 == 1 && r1 == 1 && r2 == 1
> > +
> > +Furthermore, because of the release-acquire relationship between cpu0()
> > +and cpu1(), cpu1() must see cpu0()'s writes, so that the following
> > +outcome is prohibited:
> > +
> > +	r1 == 1 && r5 == 0
> > +
> > +However, the transitivity of release-acquire is local to the participating
> > +CPUs and does not apply to cpu3().  Therefore, the following outcome
> > +is possible:
> > +
> > +	r0 == 0 && r1 == 1 && r2 == 1 && r3 == 0 && r4 == 0
> 
> I think you should be completely explicit and include r5 == 1 here, too.

Good point -- I added this as an additional outcome:

	r0 == 0 && r1 == 1 && r2 == 1 && r3 == 0 && r4 == 0 && r5 == 1

> Also -- where would you add the smp_mb__after_release_acquire to fix
> (i.e. forbid) this? Immediately after cpu1()'s read of y?

That sounds plausible, but we would first have to agree on exactly
what smp_mb__after_release_acquire() did.  ;-)

> > +Although cpu0(), cpu1(), and cpu2() will see their respective reads and
> > +writes in order, CPUs not involved in the release-acquire chain might
> > +well disagree on the order.  This disagreement stems from the fact that
> > +the weak memory-barrier instructions used to implement smp_load_acquire()
> > +and smp_store_release() are not required to order prior stores against
> > +subsequent loads in all cases.  This means that cpu3() can see cpu0()'s
> > +store to u as happening -after- cpu1()'s load from v, even though
> > +both cpu0() and cpu1() agree that these two operations occurred in the
> > +intended order.
> > +
> > +However, please keep in mind that smp_load_acquire() is not magic.
> > +In particular, it simply reads from its argument with ordering.  It does
> > +-not- ensure that any particular value will be read.  Therefore, the
> > +following outcome is possible:
> > +
> > +	r0 == 0 && r1 == 0 && r2 == 0 && r5 == 0
> > +
> > +Note that this outcome can happen even on a mythical sequentially
> > +consistent system where nothing is ever reordered.
> 
> I'm not sure this last bit is strictly necessary. If somebody thinks that
> acquire/release involve some sort of implicit synchronisation, I think
> they may have bigger problems with memory-barriers.txt.

Agreed.  But unless I add text like this occasionally, such people could
easily read through much of memory-barriers.txt and think that they did
in fact understand it.  So I have to occasionally trip an assertion in
their brain.  Or try to...  :-/

							Thanx, Paul

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Peter Zijlstra Jan. 26, 2016, 10:15 a.m. UTC | #5
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 10:12:11PM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 06:02:34PM +0000, Will Deacon wrote:

> > Thanks for having a go at this. I tried defining something axiomatically,
> > but got stuck pretty quickly. In my scheme, I used "data-directed
> > transitivity" instead of "local transitivity", since the latter seems to
> > be a bit of a misnomer.
> 
> I figured that "local" meant local to the CPUs participating in the
> release-acquire chain.  As opposed to smp_mb() chains where the ordering
> is "global" as in visible to all CPUs, whether on the chain or not.
> Does that help?

That is in fact how I read and understood it.


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diff mbox

Patch

diff --git a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
index c66ba46d8079..d8109ed99342 100644
--- a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
+++ b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
@@ -1318,8 +1318,82 @@  or a level of cache, CPU 2 might have early access to CPU 1's writes.
 General barriers are therefore required to ensure that all CPUs agree
 on the combined order of CPU 1's and CPU 2's accesses.
 
-To reiterate, if your code requires transitivity, use general barriers
-throughout.
+General barriers provide "global transitivity", so that all CPUs will
+agree on the order of operations.  In contrast, a chain of release-acquire
+pairs provides only "local transitivity", so that only those CPUs on
+the chain are guaranteed to agree on the combined order of the accesses.
+For example, switching to C code in deference to Herman Hollerith:
+
+	int u, v, x, y, z;
+
+	void cpu0(void)
+	{
+		r0 = smp_load_acquire(&x);
+		WRITE_ONCE(u, 1);
+		smp_store_release(&y, 1);
+	}
+
+	void cpu1(void)
+	{
+		r1 = smp_load_acquire(&y);
+		r4 = READ_ONCE(v);
+		r5 = READ_ONCE(u);
+		smp_store_release(&z, 1);
+	}
+
+	void cpu2(void)
+	{
+		r2 = smp_load_acquire(&z);
+		smp_store_release(&x, 1);
+	}
+
+	void cpu3(void)
+	{
+		WRITE_ONCE(v, 1);
+		smp_mb();
+		r3 = READ_ONCE(u);
+	}
+
+Because cpu0(), cpu1(), and cpu2() participate in a local transitive
+chain of smp_store_release()/smp_load_acquire() pairs, the following
+outcome is prohibited:
+
+	r0 == 1 && r1 == 1 && r2 == 1
+
+Furthermore, because of the release-acquire relationship between cpu0()
+and cpu1(), cpu1() must see cpu0()'s writes, so that the following
+outcome is prohibited:
+
+	r1 == 1 && r5 == 0
+
+However, the transitivity of release-acquire is local to the participating
+CPUs and does not apply to cpu3().  Therefore, the following outcome
+is possible:
+
+	r0 == 0 && r1 == 1 && r2 == 1 && r3 == 0 && r4 == 0
+
+Although cpu0(), cpu1(), and cpu2() will see their respective reads and
+writes in order, CPUs not involved in the release-acquire chain might
+well disagree on the order.  This disagreement stems from the fact that
+the weak memory-barrier instructions used to implement smp_load_acquire()
+and smp_store_release() are not required to order prior stores against
+subsequent loads in all cases.  This means that cpu3() can see cpu0()'s
+store to u as happening -after- cpu1()'s load from v, even though
+both cpu0() and cpu1() agree that these two operations occurred in the
+intended order.
+
+However, please keep in mind that smp_load_acquire() is not magic.
+In particular, it simply reads from its argument with ordering.  It does
+-not- ensure that any particular value will be read.  Therefore, the
+following outcome is possible:
+
+	r0 == 0 && r1 == 0 && r2 == 0 && r5 == 0
+
+Note that this outcome can happen even on a mythical sequentially
+consistent system where nothing is ever reordered.
+
+To reiterate, if your code requires global transitivity, use general
+barriers throughout.
 
 
 ========================