linux-kernel - Re: question on read_barrier

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: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

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

Date:	Mon, 21 Apr 2014 11:40:59 +0200
From:	Oliver Neukum <oliver@...kum.org>
To:	Alan Stern <stern@...land.harvard.edu>
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: question on read_barrier_depends

On Wed, 2014-04-16 at 11:26 -0400, Alan Stern wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Apr 2014, Oliver Neukum wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I am looking at memory ordering and a question hit me.
> > I was looking at the kfifo code. kfifo_put() has a barrier:
> > 
> > 			)[__kfifo->in & __tmp->kfifo.mask] = \
> > 				(typeof(*__tmp->type))__val; \
> > 			smp_wmb(); \
> > 			__kfifo->in++; \
> > 
> > Looking at kfifo_get() 
> > 
> > 		__ret = !kfifo_is_empty(__tmp); \
> > 		if (__ret) { \
> > 			*(typeof(__tmp->type))__val = \
> > 				(__is_kfifo_ptr(__tmp) ? \
> > 
> > A thought struck me. There is no corresponding barrier. I cannot
> > help myself, but I think there needs to be a smp_read_barrier_depends()
> > between reading kfifo->in (in kfifo_is empty) and reading val.
> > What do you think?
> 
> I think you are right.
> 
> In addition, the following code in kfifo_get() does this:
> 
> 			*(typeof(__tmp->type))__val = \
> 				(__is_kfifo_ptr(__tmp) ? \
> 				((typeof(__tmp->type))__kfifo->data) : \
> 				(__tmp->buf) \
> 				)[__kfifo->out & __tmp->kfifo.mask]; \
> 			smp_wmb(); \
> 			__kfifo->out++; \
> 
> It looks like the smp_wmb() should really be smp_mb(), because it 
> separates the _read_ for val from the _write_ of kfifo->out.

On the third hand, I now think wmb() is sufficient, because
there's also a write to __val. It does depend on the read
of buf[out & mask], but if no CPU does speculative writes
it must be correct.

	Regards
		Oliver



--
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/