linux-kernel - Re: futex atomic vs ordering constraints

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Date:	Tue, 1 Sep 2015 17:31:40 +0100
From:	Will Deacon <will.deacon@....com>
To:	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
Cc:	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Oleg Nesterov <oleg@...hat.com>,
	Paul McKenney <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
	"mtk.manpages@...il.com" <mtk.manpages@...il.com>,
	"dvhart@...radead.org" <dvhart@...radead.org>,
	"dave@...olabs.net" <dave@...olabs.net>,
	"Vineet.Gupta1@...opsys.com" <Vineet.Gupta1@...opsys.com>,
	"ralf@...ux-mips.org" <ralf@...ux-mips.org>,
	"ddaney@...iumnetworks.com" <ddaney@...iumnetworks.com>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: futex atomic vs ordering constraints

Hi Peter,

On Wed, Aug 26, 2015 at 07:16:59PM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> I tried to keep this email short, but failed miserably at this. For
> the TL;DR skip to the tail.

[...]

> There are a few options:
> 
>  1) punt, mandate they're both fully ordered and stop thinking about it
> 
>  2) make them both fully relaxed, rely on implied barriers and employ
>     smp_mb__{before,after}_atomic in key places
> 
> Given the current state of things and that I don't really think there is
> a compelling performance argument to be made for 2, I would suggest we
> go with 1.

I'd also go for (1). Since there is a userspace side to this, I'd *really*
like to avoid a potential situation on arm64 where the kernel builds its
side of the futex using barrier instructions (e.g. treat LDR + smp_mb()
as acquire) and userspace builds its side out of native acquire/release
instructions and the two end up interacting badly (for example, loss of
SC).

Will
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