Re: [RFC PATCH] introduce sys_membarrier(): process-wide memory barrier

Paul E. McKenney
2010-01-10T17:45:14Z

On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 06:50:09AM -0500, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> On Sat, 2010-01-09 at 21:25 -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > On Sat, Jan 09, 2010 at 09:12:58PM -0500, Steven Rostedt wrote:
>
> > > > < user space >
> > > >
> > > > < misses that CPU 2 is in rcu section >
> > >
> > >
> > > If the TLB flush misses that CPU 2 has a threaded task, and does not
> > > flush CPU 2s TLB, it can also risk the same type of crash.
> >
> > But isn't the VM's locking helping us out in that case?
> >
> > > > [CPU 2's ->curr update now visible]
> > > >
> > > > [CPU 2's rcu_read_lock() store now visible]
> > > >
> > > > free(obj);
> > > >
> > > > use_object(obj); <=== crash!
> > > >
> > >
> > > Think about it. If you change a process mmap, say you updated a mmap of
> > > a file by flushing out one page and replacing it with another. If the
> > > above missed sending to CPU 2, then CPU 2 may still be accessing the old
> > > page of the file, and not the new one.
> > >
> > > I think this may be the safe bet.
> >
> > You might well be correct that we can access that bitmap locklessly,
> > but there are additional things (like the loading of the arch-specific
> > page-table register) that are likely to be helping in the VM case, but
> > not necessarily helping in this case.
>
> Then perhaps the sys_membarrier() should just do a flush_tlb()? That
> should guarantee the synchronization, right?

Isn't just grabbing the runqueue locks a bit more straightforward and
more clearly correct? Again, this is the URCU slowpath, so it is hard
to get too excited about a 15% performance penalty.

Thanx, Paul