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authorPaul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>2010-09-07 10:38:22 -0700
committerPaul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>2011-05-05 23:16:54 -0700
commite59fb3120becfb36b22ddb8bd27d065d3cdca499 (patch)
tree37eaadfe112b64caae943fc7469274bc96553d92 /Documentation/RCU
parenta00e0d714fbded07a7a2254391ce9ed5a5cb9d82 (diff)
rcu: Decrease memory-barrier usage based on semi-formal proof
Commit d09b62d fixed grace-period synchronization, but left some smp_mb() invocations in rcu_process_callbacks() that are no longer needed, but sheer paranoia prevented them from being removed. This commit removes them and provides a proof of correctness in their absence. It also adds a memory barrier to rcu_report_qs_rsp() immediately before the update to rsp->completed in order to handle the theoretical possibility that the compiler or CPU might move massive quantities of code into a lock-based critical section. This also proves that the sheer paranoia was not entirely unjustified, at least from a theoretical point of view. In addition, the old dyntick-idle synchronization depended on the fact that grace periods were many milliseconds in duration, so that it could be assumed that no dyntick-idle CPU could reorder a memory reference across an entire grace period. Unfortunately for this design, the addition of expedited grace periods breaks this assumption, which has the unfortunate side-effect of requiring atomic operations in the functions that track dyntick-idle state for RCU. (There is some hope that the algorithms used in user-level RCU might be applied here, but some work is required to handle the NMIs that user-space applications can happily ignore. For the short term, better safe than sorry.) This proof assumes that neither compiler nor CPU will allow a lock acquisition and release to be reordered, as doing so can result in deadlock. The proof is as follows: 1. A given CPU declares a quiescent state under the protection of its leaf rcu_node's lock. 2. If there is more than one level of rcu_node hierarchy, the last CPU to declare a quiescent state will also acquire the ->lock of the next rcu_node up in the hierarchy, but only after releasing the lower level's lock. The acquisition of this lock clearly cannot occur prior to the acquisition of the leaf node's lock. 3. Step 2 repeats until we reach the root rcu_node structure. Please note again that only one lock is held at a time through this process. The acquisition of the root rcu_node's ->lock must occur after the release of that of the leaf rcu_node. 4. At this point, we set the ->completed field in the rcu_state structure in rcu_report_qs_rsp(). However, if the rcu_node hierarchy contains only one rcu_node, then in theory the code preceding the quiescent state could leak into the critical section. We therefore precede the update of ->completed with a memory barrier. All CPUs will therefore agree that any updates preceding any report of a quiescent state will have happened before the update of ->completed. 5. Regardless of whether a new grace period is needed, rcu_start_gp() will propagate the new value of ->completed to all of the leaf rcu_node structures, under the protection of each rcu_node's ->lock. If a new grace period is needed immediately, this propagation will occur in the same critical section that ->completed was set in, but courtesy of the memory barrier in #4 above, is still seen to follow any pre-quiescent-state activity. 6. When a given CPU invokes __rcu_process_gp_end(), it becomes aware of the end of the old grace period and therefore makes any RCU callbacks that were waiting on that grace period eligible for invocation. If this CPU is the same one that detected the end of the grace period, and if there is but a single rcu_node in the hierarchy, we will still be in the single critical section. In this case, the memory barrier in step #4 guarantees that all callbacks will be seen to execute after each CPU's quiescent state. On the other hand, if this is a different CPU, it will acquire the leaf rcu_node's ->lock, and will again be serialized after each CPU's quiescent state for the old grace period. On the strength of this proof, this commit therefore removes the memory barriers from rcu_process_callbacks() and adds one to rcu_report_qs_rsp(). The effect is to reduce the number of memory barriers by one and to reduce the frequency of execution from about once per scheduling tick per CPU to once per grace period. Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com> Reviewed-by: Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/RCU')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/RCU/trace.txt48
1 files changed, 20 insertions, 28 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/RCU/trace.txt b/Documentation/RCU/trace.txt
index 6a8c73f55b8..e731ad20d16 100644
--- a/Documentation/RCU/trace.txt
+++ b/Documentation/RCU/trace.txt
@@ -21,23 +21,23 @@ rcu_pending() function decided that there was core RCU work to do).
The output of "cat rcu/rcudata" looks as follows:
rcu_sched:
- 0 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=10951/1 dn=0 df=1101 of=0 ri=36 ql=0 b=10
- 1 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=16117/1 dn=0 df=1015 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
- 2 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=1445/1 dn=0 df=1839 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
- 3 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=6681/1 dn=0 df=1545 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
- 4 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=1003/1 dn=0 df=1992 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
- 5 c=17829 g=17830 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=1 dt=3887/1 dn=0 df=3331 of=0 ri=4 ql=2 b=10
- 6 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=859/1 dn=0 df=3224 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
- 7 c=17829 g=17830 pq=0 pqc=17829 qp=1 dt=3761/1 dn=0 df=1818 of=0 ri=0 ql=2 b=10
+ 0 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=10951/1/0 df=1101 of=0 ri=36 ql=0 b=10
+ 1 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=16117/1/0 df=1015 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
+ 2 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=1445/1/0 df=1839 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
+ 3 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=6681/1/0 df=1545 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
+ 4 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=1003/1/0 df=1992 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
+ 5 c=17829 g=17830 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=1 dt=3887/1/0 df=3331 of=0 ri=4 ql=2 b=10
+ 6 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=859/1/0 df=3224 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
+ 7 c=17829 g=17830 pq=0 pqc=17829 qp=1 dt=3761/1/0 df=1818 of=0 ri=0 ql=2 b=10
rcu_bh:
- 0 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=10951/1 dn=0 df=0 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
- 1 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=16117/1 dn=0 df=13 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
- 2 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=1445/1 dn=0 df=15 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
- 3 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=6681/1 dn=0 df=9 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
- 4 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=1003/1 dn=0 df=15 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
- 5 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=3887/1 dn=0 df=15 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
- 6 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=859/1 dn=0 df=15 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
- 7 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=3761/1 dn=0 df=15 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
+ 0 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=10951/1/0 df=0 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
+ 1 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=16117/1/0 df=13 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
+ 2 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=1445/1/0 df=15 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
+ 3 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=6681/1/0 df=9 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
+ 4 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=1003/1/0 df=15 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
+ 5 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=3887/1/0 df=15 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
+ 6 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=859/1/0 df=15 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
+ 7 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=3761/1/0 df=15 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
The first section lists the rcu_data structures for rcu_sched, the second
for rcu_bh. Note that CONFIG_TREE_PREEMPT_RCU kernels will have an
@@ -85,18 +85,10 @@ o "qp" indicates that RCU still expects a quiescent state from
o "dt" is the current value of the dyntick counter that is incremented
when entering or leaving dynticks idle state, either by the
- scheduler or by irq. The number after the "/" is the interrupt
- nesting depth when in dyntick-idle state, or one greater than
- the interrupt-nesting depth otherwise.
-
- This field is displayed only for CONFIG_NO_HZ kernels.
-
-o "dn" is the current value of the dyntick counter that is incremented
- when entering or leaving dynticks idle state via NMI. If both
- the "dt" and "dn" values are even, then this CPU is in dynticks
- idle mode and may be ignored by RCU. If either of these two
- counters is odd, then RCU must be alert to the possibility of
- an RCU read-side critical section running on this CPU.
+ scheduler or by irq. The number after the first "/" is the
+ interrupt nesting depth when in dyntick-idle state, or one
+ greater than the interrupt-nesting depth otherwise. The number
+ after the second "/" is the NMI nesting depth.
This field is displayed only for CONFIG_NO_HZ kernels.