linux-kernel.vger.kernel.org archive mirror
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Chris Friesen <chris.friesen@windriver.com>
To: lkml <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: semantics of reader/writer semaphores in rt patch?
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 10:17:31 -0600	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <544A7B9B.2030508@windriver.com> (raw)


I recently noticed that when CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT_FULL is enabled the 
semantics change. From "include/linux/rwsem_rt.h":

  * Note that the semantics are different from the usual
  * Linux rw-sems, in PREEMPT_RT mode we do not allow
  * multiple readers to hold the lock at once, we only allow
  * a read-lock owner to read-lock recursively. This is
  * better for latency, makes the implementation inherently
  * fair and makes it simpler as well.

How is this valid? It seems to me that the mainline kernel could have 
code paths that depend on having multiple threads of execution be able 
to hold the reader lock simultaneously. For example:


thread A:
take rw_semaphore X for reading
take lock Y, modify data, release lock Y
wake up thread B
wait on conditional protected by lock Y
free rw_semaphore X

thread B:
take rw_semaphore X for reading
wait on conditional protected by lock Y
send message to wake up thread A
free rw_semaphore X


In the regular kernel this would work, in the RT kernel it would deadlock.

Does the RT kernel just disallow this sort of algorithm?

Thanks,
Chris

                 reply	other threads:[~2014-10-24 16:17 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: [no followups] expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=544A7B9B.2030508@windriver.com \
    --to=chris.friesen@windriver.com \
    --cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).