On Wed, Mar 23, 2005 at 07:37:27AM +0100, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> 
> * Ingo Molnar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > the 'migrate read count' solution seems more promising, as it would
> > keep other parts of the RCU code unchanged. [ But it seems to break
> > the nice 'flip pointers' method you found to force a grace period. If
> > a 'read section' can migrate from one CPU to another then it can
> > migrate back as well, at which point it cannot have the 'old' pointer.
> > Maybe it would still work better than no flip pointers. ]
> 
> the flip pointer method could be made to work if we had a NR_CPUS array
> of 'current RCU pointer' values attached to the task - and that array
> would be cleared if the task exits the read section. But this has memory
> usage worries with large NR_CPUS. (full clearing of the array can be
> avoided by using some sort of 'read section generation' counter attached
> to each pointer)

The only per-task data you need to maintain is a single pointer to
the per-CPU counter that was incremented by the outermost rcu_read_lock().
You also need a global index, call it "rcu_current_ctr_set" (or come
up with a better name!) along with a per-CPU pair of counters:

        struct rcu_ctr_set {     /* or maybe there is a way to drop array */
                atomic_t ctr[2]; /* into DECLARE_PER_CPU() without a struct */
        }                        /* wrapper... */
        int     rcu_curset = 0;
        DEFINE_PER_CPU(struct rcu_ctr_set, rcu_ctr_set) = { 0, 0 };

You need two fields in the task structure:

        atomic_t *rcu_preempt_ctr;
        int rcu_nesting;

Then you have something like:

        void rcu_read_lock(void)
        {
                if (current->rcu_nesting++ == 0) {
                        preempt_disable();
                        current->rcu_preempt_ctr =
                                &__get_cpu_var(rcu_ctr_set).ctr[rcu_curset];
                        atomic_inc(current->rcu_preempt_ctr);
                        preempt_enable();
                        smp_mb();
                }
        }

        void rcu_read_unlock(void)
        {
                if (--current->rcu_nesting == 0) {
                        smb_mb();  /* might only need smp_wmb()... */
                        atomic_dec(current->rcu_preempt_ctr);
                        current->rcu_preempt_ctr = NULL;  /* for debug */
                }
        }

One can then force a grace period via something like the following,
but only if you know that all of the rcu_ctr_set.ctr[!current] are zero:

        void _synchronize_kernel(void)
        {
                int cpu;

                spin_lock(&rcu_mutex);
                rcu_curset = !rcu_curset;
                for (;;) {
                        for_each_cpu(cpu) {
                                if 
(atomic_read(&__get_cpu_var(rcu_ctr_set).ctr[!rcu_curset]) != 0) {
                                        /* yield CPU for a bit */
                                        continue;
                                }
                        }
                }
                spin_unlock(&rcu_mutex);
        }

In real life, you need a way to multiplex multiple calls to
_synchronize_kernel() into a single counter-flip event, by
setting up callbacks.  And so on...

The above stolen liberally from your patch and from my memories of
Dipankar's RCU patch for CONFIG_PREEMPT kernels.  Guaranteed to have
horrible bugs.  ;-)

                                                Thanx, Paul
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