linux-kernel - Re: bit fields && data tearing

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Message-ID: <20140907162146.GK5001@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Date:	Sun, 7 Sep 2014 09:21:46 -0700
From:	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
To:	James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@...senPartnership.com>
Cc:	Peter Hurley <peter@...leysoftware.com>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
	One Thousand Gnomes <gnomes@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
	Jakub Jelinek <jakub@...hat.com>,
	Mikael Pettersson <mikpelinux@...il.com>,
	Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@...nel.crashing.org>,
	Richard Henderson <rth@...ddle.net>,
	Oleg Nesterov <oleg@...hat.com>,
	Miroslav Franc <mfranc@...hat.com>,
	Paul Mackerras <paulus@...ba.org>,
	linuxppc-dev@...ts.ozlabs.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-arch@...r.kernel.org, Tony Luck <tony.luck@...el.com>,
	linux-ia64@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: bit fields && data tearing

On Sat, Sep 06, 2014 at 10:07:22PM -0700, James Bottomley wrote:
> On Thu, 2014-09-04 at 21:06 -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 04, 2014 at 10:47:24PM -0400, Peter Hurley wrote:
> > > Hi James,
> > > 
> > > On 09/04/2014 10:11 PM, James Bottomley wrote:
> > > > On Thu, 2014-09-04 at 17:17 -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > > >> +And there are anti-guarantees:
> > > >> +
> > > >> + (*) These guarantees do not apply to bitfields, because compilers often
> > > >> +     generate code to modify these using non-atomic read-modify-write
> > > >> +     sequences.  Do not attempt to use bitfields to synchronize parallel
> > > >> +     algorithms.
> > > >> +
> > > >> + (*) Even in cases where bitfields are protected by locks, all fields
> > > >> +     in a given bitfield must be protected by one lock.  If two fields
> > > >> +     in a given bitfield are protected by different locks, the compiler's
> > > >> +     non-atomic read-modify-write sequences can cause an update to one
> > > >> +     field to corrupt the value of an adjacent field.
> > > >> +
> > > >> + (*) These guarantees apply only to properly aligned and sized scalar
> > > >> +     variables.  "Properly sized" currently means "int" and "long",
> > > >> +     because some CPU families do not support loads and stores of
> > > >> +     other sizes.  ("Some CPU families" is currently believed to
> > > >> +     be only Alpha 21064.  If this is actually the case, a different
> > > >> +     non-guarantee is likely to be formulated.)
> > > > 
> > > > This is a bit unclear.  Presumably you're talking about definiteness of
> > > > the outcome (as in what's seen after multiple stores to the same
> > > > variable).
> > > 
> > > No, the last conditions refers to adjacent byte stores from different
> > > cpu contexts (either interrupt or SMP).
> > > 
> > > > The guarantees are only for natural width on Parisc as well,
> > > > so you would get a mess if you did byte stores to adjacent memory
> > > > locations.
> > > 
> > > For a simple test like:
> > > 
> > > struct x {
> > > 	long a;
> > > 	char b;
> > > 	char c;
> > > 	char d;
> > > 	char e;
> > > };
> > > 
> > > void store_bc(struct x *p) {
> > > 	p->b = 1;
> > > 	p->c = 2;
> > > }
> > > 
> > > on parisc, gcc generates separate byte stores
> > > 
> > > void store_bc(struct x *p) {
> > >    0:	34 1c 00 02 	ldi 1,ret0
> > >    4:	0f 5c 12 08 	stb ret0,4(r26)
> > >    8:	34 1c 00 04 	ldi 2,ret0
> > >    c:	e8 40 c0 00 	bv r0(rp)
> > >   10:	0f 5c 12 0a 	stb ret0,5(r26)
> > > 
> > > which appears to confirm that on parisc adjacent byte data
> > > is safe from corruption by concurrent cpu updates; that is,
> > > 
> > > CPU 0                | CPU 1
> > >                      |
> > > p->b = 1             | p->c = 2
> > >                      |
> > > 
> > > will result in p->b == 1 && p->c == 2 (assume both values
> > > were 0 before the call to store_bc()).
> > 
> > What Peter said.  I would ask for suggestions for better wording, but
> > I would much rather be able to say that single-byte reads and writes
> > are atomic and that aligned-short reads and writes are also atomic.
> > 
> > Thus far, it looks like we lose only very old Alpha systems, so unless
> > I hear otherwise, I update my patch to outlaw these very old systems.
> 
> This isn't universally true according to the architecture manual.  The
> PARISC CPU can make byte to long word stores atomic against the memory
> bus but not against the I/O bus for instance.  Atomicity is a property
> of the underlying substrate, not of the CPU.  Implying that atomicity is
> a CPU property is incorrect.

OK, fair point.

But are there in-use-for-Linux PARISC memory fabrics (for normal memory,
not I/O) that do not support single-byte and double-byte stores?

							Thanx, Paul

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