linux-kernel - Re: About compiler memory barrier for atomic_set/atomic

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Date:   Wed, 4 Sep 2019 13:34:51 +0800
From:   "Yin, Fengwei" <fengwei.yin@...el.com>
To:     Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, "He, Min" <min.he@...el.com>,
        "Zhao, Yakui" <yakui.zhao@...el.com>
Subject: Re: About compiler memory barrier for atomic_set/atomic_read on x86

Hi Peter,

On 9/4/2019 7:38 AM, Yin, Fengwei wrote:
> Hi Peter,
> 
> On 9/3/2019 10:06 PM, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
>> On Tue, Sep 03, 2019 at 09:23:41PM +0800, Yin, Fengwei wrote:
>>> Hi Peter,
>>> There is one question regarding following commit:
>>>
>>> commit 69d927bba39517d0980462efc051875b7f4db185
>>> Author: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
>>> Date:   Wed Apr 24 13:38:23 2019 +0200
>>>
>>>      x86/atomic: Fix smp_mb__{before,after}_atomic()
>>>
>>>      Recent probing at the Linux Kernel Memory Model uncovered a
>>>      'surprise'. Strongly ordered architectures where the atomic RmW
>>>      primitive implies full memory ordering and
>>>      smp_mb__{before,after}_atomic() are a simple barrier() (such as 
>>> x86)
>>>
>>> This change made atomic RmW operations include compiler barrier. And 
>>> made
>>> __smp_mb__before_atomic/__smp_mb__after_atomic not include compiler
>>> barrier any more for x86.
>>>
>>> We face the issue to handle atomic_set/atomic_read which is mapped to
>>> WRITE_ONCE/READ_ONCE on x86. These two functions don't include compiler
>>> barrier actually (if operator size is less than 8 bytes).
>>>
>>> Before the commit 69d927bba39517d0980462efc051875b7f4db185, we could use
>>> __smp_mb__before_atomic/__smp_mb__after_atomic together with these two
>>> functions to make sure the memory order. It can't work after the commit
>>> 69d927bba39517d0980462efc051875b7f4db185. I am wandering whether
>>> we should make atomic_set/atomic_read also include compiler memory
>>> barrier on x86? Thanks.
>>
>> No; using smp_mb__{before,after}_atomic() with atomic_{set,read}() is
>> _wrong_! And it is documented as such; see Documentation/atomic_t.txt.
> 
> Thanks a lot for direct me to this doc. And yes, from this doc:
>     - smp_mb__{before,after}_atomic() only apply to the RMW atomic ops
>     - non-RMW operations are unordered;
> 
> I checked the /Documentation/memory-barriers.txt too. In section
> "COMPILER BARRIER", "However, READ_ONCE() and WRITE_ONCE() can be
> thought of as weak forms of barrier() that affect only the specific
> accesses flagged by the READ_ONCE() or WRITE_ONCE()".
> 
> For x86 READ_ONCE/WRITE_ONCE doesn't have compiler barrier if the
> operator size is less than 8 bytes. Should we update x86 code?
> 
> So, if I use atomic_set/read, to prevent the compiler from moving memory
> access around, I should use compiler barrier explicitly. Right?
It looks like atomic_set_release/read_acquire could be used in my case.

Regards
Yin, Fengwei

> 
> Regards
> Yin, Fengwei
> 
>>
>