Commit 621934ee authored by Paul E. McKenney's avatar Paul E. McKenney Committed by Linus Torvalds
Browse files

[PATCH] srcu-3: RCU variant permitting read-side blocking 



Updated patch adding a variant of RCU that permits sleeping in read-side
critical sections.  SRCU is as follows:

o	Each use of SRCU creates its own srcu_struct, and each
	srcu_struct has its own set of grace periods.  This is
	critical, as it prevents one subsystem with a blocking
	reader from holding up SRCU grace periods for other
	subsystems.

o	The SRCU primitives (srcu_read_lock(), srcu_read_unlock(),
	and synchronize_srcu()) all take a pointer to a srcu_struct.

o	The SRCU primitives must be called from process context.

o	srcu_read_lock() returns an int that must be passed to
	the matching srcu_read_unlock().  Realtime RCU avoids the
	need for this by storing the state in the task struct,
	but SRCU needs to allow a given code path to pass through
	multiple SRCU domains -- storing state in the task struct
	would therefore require either arbitrary space in the
	task struct or arbitrary limits on SRCU nesting.  So I
	kicked the state-storage problem up to the caller.

	Of course, it is not permitted to call synchronize_srcu()
	while in an SRCU read-side critical section.

o	There is no call_srcu().  It would not be hard to implement
	one, but it seems like too easy a way to OOM the system.
	(Hey, we have enough trouble with call_rcu(), which does
	-not- permit readers to sleep!!!)  So, if you want it,
	please tell me why...

[josht@us.ibm.com: sparse notation]
Signed-off-by: default avatarPaul E. McKenney <paulmck@us.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: default avatarJosh Triplett <josh@freedesktop.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
parent 95d77884

Documentation/RCU/checklist.txt

+38 −0
Original line number Diff line number Diff line
@@ -221,3 +221,41 @@ over a rather long period of time, but improvements are always welcome! 
	disable irq on a given acquisition of that lock will result in

	deadlock as soon as the RCU callback happens to interrupt that

	acquisition's critical section.



13.	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

	section (demarked by srcu_read_lock() and srcu_read_unlock()),

	hence the "SRCU": "sleepable RCU".  Please note that if you

	don't need to sleep in read-side critical sections, you should

	be using RCU rather than SRCU, because RCU is almost always

	faster and easier to use than is SRCU.



	Also unlike other forms of RCU, explicit initialization

	and cleanup is required via init_srcu_struct() and

	cleanup_srcu_struct().	These are passed a "struct srcu_struct"

	that defines the scope of a given SRCU domain.	Once initialized,

	the srcu_struct is passed to srcu_read_lock(), srcu_read_unlock()

	and synchronize_srcu().  A given synchronize_srcu() waits only

	for SRCU read-side critical sections governed by srcu_read_lock()

	and srcu_read_unlock() calls that have been passd the same

	srcu_struct.  This property is what makes sleeping read-side

	critical sections tolerable -- a given subsystem delays only

	its own updates, not those of other subsystems using SRCU.

	Therefore, SRCU is less prone to OOM the system than RCU would

	be if RCU's read-side critical sections were permitted to

	sleep.



	The ability to sleep in read-side critical sections does not

	come for free.	First, corresponding srcu_read_lock() and

	srcu_read_unlock() calls must be passed the same srcu_struct.

	Second, grace-period-detection overhead is amortized only

	over those updates sharing a given srcu_struct, rather than

	being globally amortized as they are for other forms of RCU.

	Therefore, SRCU should be used in preference to rw_semaphore

	only in extremely read-intensive situations, or in situations

	requiring SRCU's read-side deadlock immunity or low read-side

	realtime latency.



	Note that, rcu_assign_pointer() and rcu_dereference() relate to

	SRCU just as they do to other forms of RCU.

Documentation/RCU/rcu.txt

+2 −1
Original line number Diff line number Diff line
@@ -45,7 +45,8 @@ o How can I see where RCU is currently used in the Linux kernel? 


	Search for "rcu_read_lock", "rcu_read_unlock", "call_rcu",

	"rcu_read_lock_bh", "rcu_read_unlock_bh", "call_rcu_bh",

	"synchronize_rcu", and "synchronize_net".

	"srcu_read_lock", "srcu_read_unlock", "synchronize_rcu",

	"synchronize_net", and "synchronize_srcu".



o	What guidelines should I follow when writing code that uses RCU?

Documentation/RCU/whatisRCU.txt

+3 −0
Original line number Diff line number Diff line
@@ -778,6 +778,8 @@ Markers for RCU read-side critical sections: 
	rcu_read_unlock

	rcu_read_lock_bh

	rcu_read_unlock_bh

	srcu_read_lock

	srcu_read_unlock



RCU pointer/list traversal:
@@ -804,6 +806,7 @@ RCU grace period: 
	synchronize_net

	synchronize_sched

	synchronize_rcu

	synchronize_srcu

	call_rcu

	call_rcu_bh

include/linux/srcu.h

0 → 100644
+49 −0
Original line number Diff line number Diff line 
/*

 * Sleepable Read-Copy Update mechanism for mutual exclusion

 *

 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify

 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by

 * the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or

 * (at your option) any later version.

 *

 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,

 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of

 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the

 * GNU General Public License for more details.

 *

 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License

 * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software

 * Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

 *

 * Copyright (C) IBM Corporation, 2006

 *

 * Author: Paul McKenney <paulmck@us.ibm.com>

 *

 * For detailed explanation of Read-Copy Update mechanism see -

 * 		Documentation/RCU/ *.txt

 *

 */



struct srcu_struct_array {

	int c[2];

};



struct srcu_struct {

	int completed;

	struct srcu_struct_array *per_cpu_ref;

	struct mutex mutex;

};



#ifndef CONFIG_PREEMPT

#define srcu_barrier() barrier()

#else /* #ifndef CONFIG_PREEMPT */

#define srcu_barrier()

#endif /* #else #ifndef CONFIG_PREEMPT */



void init_srcu_struct(struct srcu_struct *sp);

void cleanup_srcu_struct(struct srcu_struct *sp);

int srcu_read_lock(struct srcu_struct *sp) __acquires(sp);

void srcu_read_unlock(struct srcu_struct *sp, int idx) __releases(sp);

void synchronize_srcu(struct srcu_struct *sp);

long srcu_batches_completed(struct srcu_struct *sp);

void cleanup_srcu_struct(struct srcu_struct *sp);

kernel/Makefile

+1 −1
Original line number Diff line number Diff line
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ obj-y = sched.o fork.o exec_domain.o panic.o printk.o profile.o \ 
	    signal.o sys.o kmod.o workqueue.o pid.o \

	    rcupdate.o extable.o params.o posix-timers.o \

	    kthread.o wait.o kfifo.o sys_ni.o posix-cpu-timers.o mutex.o \

	    hrtimer.o rwsem.o latency.o nsproxy.o

	    hrtimer.o rwsem.o latency.o nsproxy.o srcu.o



obj-$(CONFIG_STACKTRACE) += stacktrace.o

obj-y += time/

CRA Git | Maintained and supported by SUSTech CRA and CCSE