On 12/03, Eric Dumazet wrote:
>
> Oleg Nesterov a ?crit :
> >On top of rcu-add-a-prefetch-in-rcu_do_batch.patch
> >
> >rcu_do_batch:
> >
> > struct rcu_head *next, *list;
> >
> > while (list) {
> > next = list->next; <------ [1]
> > list->func(list);
> > list = next;
> > }
> >
> >We can't trust *list after list->func() call, that is why we load
> >list->next
> >beforehand. However I suspect in theory this is not enough, suppose that
> >
> > - [1] is stalled
> >
> > - list->func() marks *list as unused in some way
> >
> > - another CPU re-uses this rcu_head and dirties it
> >
> > - [1] completes and gets a wrong result
> >
> >This means we need a barrier in between. mb() looks more suitable, but I
> >think
> >rmb() should suffice.
> >
>
> Well, hopefully the "list->func()" MUST do the right thing [*], so your
> patch is not necessary.
Yes, I don't claim it is necessary, note the "pure theoretical".
> For example, most structures are freed with kfree()/kmem_cache_free() and
> these functions MUST imply an smp_mb() [if/when exchanging data with other
> cpus], or else many uses in the kernel should be corrected as well.
Yes, mb() is enough (wmb() isn't) and kfree()/kmem_cache_free() are ok.
And I don't know any example of "unsafe" code in that sense.
However I believe it is easy to make the code which is correct from the
RCU's API pov, but unsafe.
Oleg.
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