linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v2 2/3] printk: add lockless buffer

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Date:   Tue, 19 May 2020 22:34:19 +0200
From:   John Ogness <john.ogness@...utronix.de>
To:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:     Petr Mladek <pmladek@...e.com>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky.work@...il.com>,
        Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky@...il.com>,
        Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Andrea Parri <parri.andrea@...il.com>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        kexec@...ts.infradead.org,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 2/3] printk: add lockless buffer

On 2020-05-18, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org> wrote:
>>                 smp_mb(); /* LMM(data_push_tail:C) */
>>
>> +               if (atomic_long_try_cmpxchg_relaxed(&data_ring->tail_lpos,
>> +                               &tail_lpos,
>> +                               next_lpos)) { /* LMM(data_push_tail:D) */
>> +                       break;
>> +               }
>
> Doing an "smp_mb()" followed by a "cmpxchg_relaxed" seems all kinds of
> odd and pointless, and is very much non-optimal on x86 for example.,
>
> Just remove the smp_mb(), and use the non-relaxed form of cmpxchg.
> It's defined to be fully ordered if it succeeds (and if the cmpxchg
> doesn't succeed, it's a no-op and the memory barrier shouldn't make
> any difference).
>
> Otherwise you'll do two memory ordering operations on x86 (and
> probably some other architectures), since the cmpxchg is always
> ordered on x86 and there exists no "relaxed" form of it.

ACK.

All three smp_mb()'s and both smp_wmb()'s sit directly next to
cmpxchg_relaxed() calls. Having explicit memory barriers was helpful for
identifying, proving, and testing a minimal set of pairs (on arm64), but
all will be folded into full cmpxchg()'s for the next version.

John Ogness