linux-kernel - Re: rcu_read_lock lost its compiler barrier

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Date:   Mon, 3 Jun 2019 00:23:39 -0700
From:   "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.ibm.com>
To:     Herbert Xu <herbert@...dor.apana.org.au>
Cc:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@...il.com>,
        Boqun Feng <boqun.feng@...il.com>,
        Fengguang Wu <fengguang.wu@...el.com>, LKP <lkp@...org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Netdev <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>
Subject: Re: rcu_read_lock lost its compiler barrier

On Mon, Jun 03, 2019 at 12:01:14PM +0800, Herbert Xu wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 02, 2019 at 08:47:07PM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> >
> > 	CPU2:         if (b != 1)
> > 	CPU2:                 b = 1;
> 
> Stop right there.  The kernel is full of code that assumes that
> assignment to an int/long is atomic.  If your compiler breaks this
> assumption that we can kiss the kernel good-bye.

Here you go:

https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=55981
https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=56028

TL;DR: On x86, of you are doing a plain store of a 32-bit constant
that has bits set only in the lower few bits of each 16-bit half of
that constant, the compiler is plenty happy to use a pair of 16-bit
store-immediate instructions to carry out that store.  This is also
known as "store tearing".

The two bugs were filed (and after some back and forth, fixed) because
someone forgot to exclude C11 atomics and volatile accesses from this
store tearing.

							Thanx, Paul