linux-kernel - Re: why are some atomic_t's not volatile, while most are?

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite for Android: free password hash cracker in your pocket

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:	Wed, 8 Aug 2007 16:27:55 +0800
From:	Jerry Jiang <wjiang@...ilience.com>
To:	Chris Snook <csnook@...hat.com>
Cc:	Chris Friesen <cfriesen@...tel.com>, Zan Lynx <zlynx@....org>,
	"Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@...dspring.com>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: why are some atomic_t's not volatile, while most are?

On Wed, 08 Aug 2007 02:47:53 -0400
Chris Snook <csnook@...hat.com> wrote:

> Chris Friesen wrote:
> > Chris Snook wrote:
> > 
> >> This is not a problem, since indirect references will cause the CPU to 
> >> fetch the data from memory/cache anyway.
> > 
> > Isn't Zan's sample code (that shows the problem) already using indirect 
> > references?
> 
> Yeah, I misinterpreted his conclusion.  I thought about this for a 
> while, and realized that it's perfectly legal for the compiler to re-use 
> a value obtained from atomic_read.  All that matters is that the read 
> itself was atomic.  The use (or non-use) of the volatile keyword is 
> really more relevant to the other atomic operations.  If you want to 
> guarantee a re-read from memory, use barrier().  This, incidentally, 
> uses volatile under the hood.
> 


So for example, without volatile

int a = read_atomic(v);
int b = read_atomic(v);

the compiler will optimize it as b = a, 
But with volatile, it will be forced to fetch v's value from memory
again.

So, come back our initial question, 

include/asm-v850/atomic.h:typedef struct { int counter; } atomic_t;

Why is it right without volatile?

-- Jerry


> 	-- Chris
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/