Re: smp_rmb in mm/memory.c in 2.6.10

Kanoj Sarcar
2005-01-14T22:22:10Z

Hi Andrea,

I read through your other pieces of email, but
responding on this to catch Linus and Andrew. In a
prior mail, you said:

"Infact it seems to me right now that we miss a
smp_wmb() right before
atomic_inc(&mapping->truncate_count): the spin_lock
has inclusive semantics on ia64, and in turn the
i_size update could happen after the atomic_inc
without a smp_wmb().

So please backout the buggy changes and add the
smp_wmb() to fix this ia64 altix race."

I haven't really tracked 2.6 closely, so pardon any
omissions I make in these comments ...

Note that vmtruncate() does a i_size_write(), which
does a write_seqcount_end() after updating the i_size,
which has an embedded smp_wmb() right after the i_size
update, so the case you are talking about is already
handled. No? (Btw, I did not look at i_size_write() in
the case of !CONFIG_SMP and CONFIG_PREEMPT, there
might need to be some barriers put in there, not
sure).

But, based on what you said, yes, I believe an
smp_wmb() is required _after_
atomic_inc(truncate_count) in unmap_mapping_range() to
ensure that the write happens before it does the TLB
shootdown. Right?

I am sure there might be other ways to clean up this
code. Some documentation could not hurt, it could save
everyone's head hurting when they look at this code!

Btw, do all callers of vmtruncate() guarantee they do
not concurrently invoke vmtruncate() on the same file?
Seems like they could be stepping on each other while
updating i_size ...

Thanks.

Kanoj

--- Andrea Arcangeli <andrea@suse.de> wrote:

> Added Andrew and Linus since they were the other
> signers of the buggy
> changeset, so they can review I'm not missing
> something too.
>
>
>
http://linux.bkbits.net:8080/linux-2.5/cset%401.2247.12.78?nav=index.html|ChangeSet@-7d
>
> Thanks.
>
> On Fri, Jan 14, 2005 at 10:25:33PM +0100, Andrea
> Arcangeli wrote:
> > On Fri, Jan 14, 2005 at 08:37:58PM +0000, Hugh
> Dickins wrote:
> > > On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Kanoj Sarcar wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Thanks, I think this explains it. IE, if
> do_no_page()
> > > > reads truncate_count, and then later goes on
> to
> > > > acquire a lock in nopage(), the smp_rmb() is
> > > > guaranteeing that the read of truncate_count
> completes
> > > > before nopage() starts executing.
> > > >
> > > > For x86 at least, it seems to me that since
> the
> > > > spin_lock (in nopage()) uses a "lock"
> instruction,
> > > > that itself guarantees that the truncate_count
> read is
> > > > completed, even without the smp_rmb(). (Refer
> to IA32
> > > > SDM Vol 3 section 7.2.4 last para page 7-11).
> Thus for
> > > > x86, the smp_rmb is superfluous.
> > >
> > > You're making me nervous. If you look at
> 2.6.11-rc1 you'll find
> > > that I too couldn't see the point of that
> smp_rmb(), on any architecture,
> > > and so removed it; while also removing the
> "atomicity" of truncate_count.
> > >
> > > Here was my comment to that patch:
> > > > Why is mapping->truncate_count atomic? It's
> incremented inside
> > > > i_mmap_lock (and i_sem), and the reads don't
> need it to be atomic.
> > > >
> > > > And why smp_rmb() before call to ->nopage?
> The compiler cannot reorder
> > > > the initial assignment of sequence after the
> call to ->nopage, and no
> > > > cpu (yet!) can read from the future, which is
> all that matters there.
> > >
> > > Now I'm not so convinced by that "no cpu can
> read from the future".
> > >
> > > I don't entirely follow your remarks above, but
> I do think people
> > > on this thread have a better grasp of these
> matters than I have:
> > > does anyone now think that smp_rmb() needs to be
> restored?
> >
> > You could have asked even before breaking mainline
> ;).
> >
> > The rmb serializes the read of truncate_count with
> the read of
> > inode->i_size. The rmb is definitely required, and
> I would leave it an
> > atomic op to be sure gcc doesn't outsmart
> unmap_mapping_range_list (gcc
> > can see the internals of
> unmap_mapping_range_list). I mean just in case.
> > We must increase that piece of ram before we
> truncate the ptes and after
> > we updated the i_size.
> >
> > Infact it seems to me right now that we miss a
> smp_wmb() right before
> > atomic_inc(&mapping->truncate_count): the
> spin_lock has inclusive
> > semantics on ia64, and in turn the i_size update
> could happen after the
> > atomic_inc without a smp_wmb().
> >
> > So please backout the buggy changes and add the
> smp_wmb() to fix this
> > ia64 altix race.
>

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