linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/4] spinlock: Document memory barrier rules

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, 29 Aug 2016 15:44:24 +0200
From:   Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
To:     Manfred Spraul <manfred@...orfullife.com>
Cc:     benh@...nel.crashing.org, paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>, Boqun Feng <boqun.feng@...il.com>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, 1vier1@....de,
        Davidlohr Bueso <dave@...olabs.net>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/4] spinlock: Document memory barrier rules

On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 02:54:54PM +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote:
> Hi Peter,
> 
> On 08/29/2016 12:48 PM, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> >On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 01:56:13PM +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote:
> >>Right now, the spinlock machinery tries to guarantee barriers even for
> >>unorthodox locking cases, which ends up as a constant stream of updates
> >>as the architectures try to support new unorthodox ideas.
> >>
> >>The patch proposes to reverse that:
> >>spin_lock is ACQUIRE, spin_unlock is RELEASE.
> >>spin_unlock_wait is also ACQUIRE.
> >>Code that needs further guarantees must use appropriate explicit barriers.
> >>
> >>Architectures that can implement some barriers for free can define the
> >>barriers as NOPs.
> >>
> >>As the initial step, the patch converts ipc/sem.c to the new defines:
> >>- no more smp_rmb() after spin_unlock_wait(), that is part of
> >>   spin_unlock_wait()
> >>- smp_mb__after_spin_lock() instead of a direct smp_mb().
> >>
> >Why? This does not explain why..
> 
> Which explanation is missing?
> 
> - removal of the smb_rmb() after spin_unlock_wait?

So that should have been a separate patch. This thing doing two things
is wrong too. But no, this I get. I did make spin_unlock_wait() an
ACQUIRE after all.

> - Why smp_mb is required after spin_lock? See Patch 02, I added the race
> that exists on real hardware.
> 
> Exactly the same issue exists for sem.c
> 
> - Why introduce a smp_mb__after_spin_lock()?
> 
> The other options would be:
> - same as RCU, i.e. add CONFIG_PPC into sem.c and nf_contrack_core.c
> - overhead for all archs by added an unconditional smp_mb()

See, this too doesn't adequately explain the situation, since all refers
to other sources.

If you add a barrier, the Changelog had better be clear. And I'm still
not entirely sure I get what exactly this barrier should do, nor why it
defaults to a full smp_mb. If what I suspect it should do, only PPC and
ARM64 need the barrier.

And x86 doesn't need it -- _however_ it would need it if you require
full smp_mb semantics, which I suspect you don't.

Which brings us back to a very poor definition of what this barrier
should be doing.