From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755543AbcI2RKl (ORCPT ); Thu, 29 Sep 2016 13:10:41 -0400 Received: from foss.arm.com ([217.140.101.70]:57146 "EHLO foss.arm.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751287AbcI2RKd (ORCPT ); Thu, 29 Sep 2016 13:10:33 -0400 Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 18:10:37 +0100 From: Will Deacon To: "Paul E. McKenney" Cc: Peter Zijlstra , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, mingo@kernel.org, dhowells@redhat.com, stern@rowland.harvard.edu Subject: Re: [PATCH locking/Documentation 1/2] Add note of release-acquire store vulnerability Message-ID: <20160929171036.GV13862@arm.com> References: <20160929155401.GA5097@linux.vnet.ibm.com> <20160929155817.GB5016@twins.programming.kicks-ass.net> <20160929160307.GT13862@arm.com> <20160929164353.GX14933@linux.vnet.ibm.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20160929164353.GX14933@linux.vnet.ibm.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 09:43:53AM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote: > On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 05:03:08PM +0100, Will Deacon wrote: > > On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 05:58:17PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote: > > > On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 08:54:01AM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote: > > > > If two processes are related by a RELEASE+ACQUIRE pair, ordering can be > > > > broken if a third process overwrites the value written by the RELEASE > > > > operation before the ACQUIRE operation has a chance of reading it. > > > > This commit therefore updates the documentation to call this vulnerability > > > > out explicitly. > > > > > > > > Reported-by: Alan Stern > > > > Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney > > > > > > > + However, please note that a chain of RELEASE+ACQUIRE pairs may be > > > > + broken by a store by another thread that overwrites the RELEASE > > > > + operation's store before the ACQUIRE operation's read. > > > > > > This is the powerpc lwsync quirk, right? Where the barrier disappears > > > when it looses the store. > > > > > > Or is there more to it? Its not entirely clear from the Changelog, which > > > I feel should describe the reason for the behaviour. > > > > If I've groked it correctly, it's for cases like: > > > > > > PO: > > Wx=1 > > WyRel=1 > > > > P1: > > Wy=2 > > > > P2: > > RyAcq=2 > > Rx=0 > > > > Final value of y is 2. > > > > > > This is permitted on arm64. If you make P1's store a store-release, then > > it's forbidden, but I suspect that's not generally true of the kernel > > memory model. > > That is the one! And to Peter's point, powerpc does the same for the > example as shown. However, on powerpc, upgrading P1's store to release > has no effect because there is no earlier access for the resulting > lwsync to influence. For whatever it might be worth, C11 won't guarantee > ordering in that case, either. Nor will the current Linux-kernel memory > model. (Yes, I did just try it to make sure. Why do you ask?) > > So you guys are fishing for an expanded commit log, for example, like > the following? ;-) > > Thanx, Paul > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > If two processes are related by a RELEASE+ACQUIRE pair, ordering can be > broken if a third process overwrites the value written by the RELEASE > operation before the ACQUIRE operation has a chance of reading it, for > example: > > P0(int *x, int *y) > { > WRITE_ONCE(*x, 1); > smp_wmb(); > smp_store_release(y, 1); > } > > P1(int *y) > { > smp_store_release(y, 2); > } > > P2(int *x, int *y) > { > r1 = smp_load_acquire(y); > r2 = READ_ONCE(*x); > } > > Both ARM and powerpc allow the "after the dust settles" outcome (r1=2 && > r2=0), as does the current version of the early prototype Linux-kernel > memory model. FWIW, ARM doesn't allow this and arm64 only allows it if P1 uses WRITE_ONCE instead of store-release. Will