linux-kernel - Re: [patch 02/17] Kernel Tracepoints

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Date:	Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:18:00 -0400
From:	Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...ymtl.ca>
To:	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>
Cc:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...hat.com>,
	"Frank Ch. Eigler" <fche@...hat.com>,
	Hideo AOKI <haoki@...hat.com>,
	Takashi Nishiie <t-nishiie@...css.fujitsu.com>,
	Alexander Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
	Eduard - Gabriel Munteanu <eduard.munteanu@...ux360.ro>,
	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: [patch 02/17] Kernel Tracepoints

* Steven Rostedt (rostedt@...dmis.org) wrote:
> 
> [Added Paul McKenney to CC]
> 
> On Tue, 15 Jul 2008, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> > +++ linux-2.6-lttng/include/linux/tracepoint.h	2008-07-15 17:35:19.000000000 -0400
> > @@ -0,0 +1,127 @@
> > +#ifndef _LINUX_TRACEPOINT_H
> > +#define _LINUX_TRACEPOINT_H
> > +
> > +/*
> > + * Kernel Tracepoint API.
> > + *
> > + * See Documentation/tracepoint.txt.
> > + *
> > + * (C) Copyright 2008 Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...ymtl.ca>
> > + *
> > + * Heavily inspired from the Linux Kernel Markers.
> > + *
> > + * This file is released under the GPLv2.
> > + * See the file COPYING for more details.
> > + */
> > +
> > +#include <linux/types.h>
> > +#include <linux/rcupdate.h>
> > +
> > +struct module;
> > +struct tracepoint;
> > +
> > +struct tracepoint {
> > +	const char *name;		/* Tracepoint name */
> > +	int state;			/* State. */
> > +	void **funcs;
> > +} __attribute__((aligned(8)));
> > +
> > +
> > +#define TPPROTO(args...)	args
> > +#define TPARGS(args...)		args
> > +
> > +#ifdef CONFIG_TRACEPOINTS
> > +
> > +/*
> > + * it_func[0] is never NULL because there is at least one element in the array
> > + * when the array itself is non NULL.
> > + */
> > +#define __DO_TRACE(tp, proto, args)					\
> > +	do {								\
> > +		void **it_func;						\
> > +									\
> > +		rcu_read_lock_sched();					\
> > +		it_func = rcu_dereference((tp)->funcs);			\
> > +		if (it_func) {						\
> > +			do {						\
> > +				((void(*)(proto))(*it_func))(args);	\
> > +			} while (*(++it_func));				\
> 
> OK, I still don't understand the concept of the rcu_dereference, but why
> is it needed for the first assignment of it_func but not the ++? Is it
> only needed with the (tp)->funcs?
> 

rcu_dereference copies the tp->funcs pointer on the local stack and then
puts a smp_read_barrier_depends() to make sure that the tp->funcs read
occurs before the actual use of the data (here, it is the array
elements) where the tp->funcs pointer copy points to.

What happens here is that the tp->funcs pointer, pointing to the
beginning of the array, is only read once. Afterward, the iterator is
located on the stack and therefore incrementing it does not need to be
protected by any other kind of barrier whatsoever because only the
original tp->funcs read was a RCU pointer read.

Then, as you probably know, the update side performs a
rcu_assign_pointer which does a smp_wmb before the pointer assignment to
make sure the array data has been populated before the pointer
assignment.

Mathieu

> -- Steve
> 
> 
> > +		}							\
> > +		rcu_read_unlock_sched();				\
> > +	} while (0)
> 

-- 
Mathieu Desnoyers
OpenPGP key fingerprint: 8CD5 52C3 8E3C 4140 715F  BA06 3F25 A8FE 3BAE 9A68
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