Re: [PATCH 2/2] [PATCH] sched: Add smp_rmb() in task rq locking cycles

[Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 08:05:32AM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > FWIW, we should probably update that table to include control
> > dependencies too; we didn't (formally) have those back then I think.
> > 
> > The blob under SMP BARRIER PAIRING does not mention pairing with control
> > dependencies; and I'm rather sure I've done so.
> 
> Yep, they should pair as well, though the pairing is limited.
> No transitivity, of course.
> 
> So the straightforward approach requires eighteen bits per cell, though
> some of them are a bit, ummm, "unusual".  

Right, I think the idea was to not mark with 'X' when very unusual,
otherwise you do indeed obtain the below 'trivial' matrix.

> Sixteen of these are given by
> Scenarios 0-15 in http://lwn.net/Articles/573436/, with the barrier on
> the side corresponding to the first column and the barrier on the top
> corresponding to the second column.  The seventeenth bit says whether
> you get transitivity chaining after the top access, assuming that it
> happens later.  The eighteenth bit says whether you get transitivity
> chaining before the side access, assuming that it happens earlier.
> 
> The following is a rough first guess, filling in only the diagonal.
> Some of the entries are no doubt wrong, and getting them right requires
> something like 7*7*18 test cases, which will take some time.  So, is
> something like this really helpful?


>       |   mb  |  wmb  |  rmb  |  rbd  |  acq  |  rel  |  ctl  |
>  -----+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
>    mb | 3ffff |   X   |   X   |   X   |   X   |   X   |   X   +
>  -----+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
>   wmb |   X   | 01000 |   X   |   X   |   X   |   X   |   X   +
>  -----+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
>   rmb |   X   |   X   | 00000 |   X   |   X   |   X   |   X   +
>  -----+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
>   rbd |   X   |   X   |   X   | 00000 |   X   |   X   |   X   +
>  -----+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
>   acq |   X   |   X   |   X   |   X   | 00020 |   X   |   X   +
>  -----+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
>   rel |   X   |   X   |   X   |   X   |   X   | 0cc00 |   X   +
>  -----+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
>   ctl |   X   |   X   |   X   |   X   |   X   |   X   | 00020 +
>  -----+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+

So maybe make two tables; one with 'obvious' pairings, which would
include things like mb - {mb,rmb,wmb}; rmb-wmb; acq-rel; ctl-mb; etc.

That table is for people to quickly check 'easy'; like yes wmb-rbd makes
sense and rmb-rbd doesn't appear to make sense, I need more reading up.

After that do the 'funny' table, which will explain further possible
pairings in more detail, like the rmb-rbd pairing.

I'm not entirely sure we want to do the 7*7*18 state table, that's a lot
of work to exhaustively generate. We should be lazy and demand fill when
people come to us.