Re: [PATCH v5 04/10] rust: sync: atomic: Add generic atomics

Benno Lossin
2025-07-04T22:49:16Z

On Sat Jul 5, 2025 at 12:30 AM CEST, Boqun Feng wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 05, 2025 at 12:05:48AM +0200, Benno Lossin wrote:
> [..]
>> >>
>> >> I don't think there is a big difference between `Opaque<T>` and
>> >> `Opaque<T::Repr>` if we have the transmute equivalence between the two.
>> >> From a safety perspective, you don't gain or lose anything by using the
>> >> first over the second one. They both require the invariant that they are
>> >> valid (as `Opaque` removes that... we should really be using
>> >> `UnsafeCell` here instead... why aren't we doing that?).
>> >>
>> >
>> > I need the `UnsafePinned`-like behavior of `Atomic<*mut T>` to support
>> > Rcu<T>, and I will replace it with `UnsafePinned`, once that's is
>> > available.
>>
>> Can you expand on this? What do you mean by "`UnsafePinned`-like
>> behavior"? And what does `Rcu<T>` have to do with atomics?
>>
>
> `Rcu<T>` is an RCU protected (atomic) pointer, the its definition is
>
> pub struct Rcu<T>(Atomic<*mut T>);
>
> I need Pin<&mut Rcu<T>> and &Rcu<T> able to co-exist: an updater will
> have the access to Pin<&mut Rcu<T>>, and all the readers will have the
> access to &Rcu<T>, for that I need `Atomic<*mut T>` to be
> `UnsafePinned`, because `Pin<&mut Rcu<T>>` cannot imply noalias.

Then `Rcu` should be

pub struct Rcu<T>(UnsafePinned<Atomic<*mut T>>);

And `Atomic` shouldn't wrap `UnsafePinned<T>`. Because that prevents
`&mut Atomic<i32>` to be tagged with `noalias` and that should be fine.
You should only pay for what you need :)

>> > Maybe that also means `UnsafePinned<T>` make more sense? Because if `T`
>> > is a pointer, it's easy to prove the provenance is there. (Note a
>> > `&Atomic<*mut T>` may come from a `*mut *mut T`, may be a field in C
>> > struct)
>>
>> Also don't understand this.
>>
>
> One of the usage of the atomic is being able to communicate with C side,
> for example, if we have a struct foo:
>
> struct foo {
> struct bar *b;
> }
>
> and writer can do this at C side:
>
> struct foo *f = ...;
> struct bar *b = kcalloc(*b, ...);
>
> // init b;
>
> smp_store_release(&f->b, b);
>
> and a reader at Rust side can do:
>
> #[repr(transparent)]
> struct Bar(binding::bar);
> struct Foo(Opaque<bindings::foo>);
>
> fn get_bar(foo: &Foo) {
> let foo_ptr = foo.0.get();
>
> let b: *mut *mut Bar = unsafe { &raw mut (*foo_ptr).b }.cast();
> // SAFETY: C side accessing this pointer with atomics.
> let b = unsafe { Atomic::<*mut Bar>::from_ptr(b) };
>
> // Acquire pairs with the Release from C side;
> let bar_ptr = b.load(Acquire);
>
> // accessing bar.
> }

This is a nice example, might be a good idea to put this on
`Atomic::from_ptr`.

> This is the case we must support if we want to write any non-trivial
> synchronization code communicate with C side.
>
> And in this case, it's generally easier to reason why we can convert a
> *mut *mut Bar to &UnsafePinned<*mut Bar>.

What does that have to do with `UnsafePinned`? `UnsafeCell` should
suffice.

Also where does the provenance interact with `UnsafePinned`?

---
Cheers,
Benno