linux-kernel - Re: Interrupts, smp_load_acquire(), smp_store

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Date:   Sat, 20 Oct 2018 14:04:13 -0700
From:   "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.ibm.com>
To:     Alan Stern <stern@...land.harvard.edu>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-arch@...r.kernel.org,
        davidtgoldblatt@...il.com, andrea.parri@...rulasolutions.com,
        will.deacon@....com, peterz@...radead.org, boqun.feng@...il.com,
        npiggin@...il.com, dhowells@...hat.com, j.alglave@....ac.uk,
        luc.maranget@...ia.fr, akiyks@...il.com, dlustig@...dia.com
Subject: Re: Interrupts, smp_load_acquire(), smp_store_release(), etc.

On Sat, Oct 20, 2018 at 04:18:37PM -0400, Alan Stern wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Oct 2018, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> 
> > The second (informal) litmus test has a more interesting Linux-kernel
> > counterpart:
> > 
> > 	void t1_interrupt(void)
> > 	{
> > 		r0 = READ_ONCE(y);
> > 		smp_store_release(&x, 1);
> > 	}
> > 
> > 	void t1(void)
> > 	{
> > 		smp_store_release(&y, 1);
> > 	}
> > 
> > 	void t2(void)
> > 	{
> > 		r1 = smp_load_acquire(&x);
> > 		r2 = smp_load_acquire(&y);
> > 	}
> > 
> > On store-reordering architectures that implement smp_store_release()
> > as a memory-barrier instruction followed by a store, the interrupt could
> > arrive betweentimes in t1(), so that there would be no ordering between
> > t1_interrupt()'s store to x and t1()'s store to y.  This could (again,
> > in paranoid theory) result in the outcome r0==0 && r1==0 && r2==1.
> 
> This is disconcerting only if we assume that t1_interrupt() has to be
> executed by the same CPU as t1().  If the interrupt could be fielded by
> a different CPU then the paranoid outcome is perfectly understandable,
> even in an SC context.
> 
> So the question really should be limited to situations where a handler 
> is forced to execute in the context of a particular thread.  While 
> POSIX does allow such restrictions for user programs, I'm not aware of 
> any similar mechanism in the kernel.

Good point, and I was in fact assuming that t1() and t1_interrupt()
were executing on the same CPU.

This sort of thing happens naturally in the kernel when both t1()
and t1_interrupt() are accessing per-CPU variables.

							Thanx, Paul