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authorPaul E. McKenney <paulmck@us.ibm.com>2006-10-04 02:17:02 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@g5.osdl.org>2006-10-04 07:55:30 -0700
commit621934ee7ed5b073c7fd638b347e632c53572761 (patch)
tree5722f9cda22c099ad60545f963410dcbc762ee65 /Documentation/RCU
parent95d77884c77beed676036d2f74d10b470a483c63 (diff)
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[PATCH] srcu-3: RCU variant permitting read-side blocking
Updated patch adding a variant of RCU that permits sleeping in read-side critical sections. SRCU is as follows: o Each use of SRCU creates its own srcu_struct, and each srcu_struct has its own set of grace periods. This is critical, as it prevents one subsystem with a blocking reader from holding up SRCU grace periods for other subsystems. o The SRCU primitives (srcu_read_lock(), srcu_read_unlock(), and synchronize_srcu()) all take a pointer to a srcu_struct. o The SRCU primitives must be called from process context. o srcu_read_lock() returns an int that must be passed to the matching srcu_read_unlock(). Realtime RCU avoids the need for this by storing the state in the task struct, but SRCU needs to allow a given code path to pass through multiple SRCU domains -- storing state in the task struct would therefore require either arbitrary space in the task struct or arbitrary limits on SRCU nesting. So I kicked the state-storage problem up to the caller. Of course, it is not permitted to call synchronize_srcu() while in an SRCU read-side critical section. o There is no call_srcu(). It would not be hard to implement one, but it seems like too easy a way to OOM the system. (Hey, we have enough trouble with call_rcu(), which does -not- permit readers to sleep!!!) So, if you want it, please tell me why... [josht@us.ibm.com: sparse notation] Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@us.ibm.com> Signed-off-by: Josh Triplett <josh@freedesktop.org> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/RCU')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/RCU/checklist.txt38
-rw-r--r--Documentation/RCU/rcu.txt3
-rw-r--r--Documentation/RCU/whatisRCU.txt3
3 files changed, 43 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/RCU/checklist.txt b/Documentation/RCU/checklist.txt
index 1d50cf0..f4dffad 100644
--- a/Documentation/RCU/checklist.txt
+++ b/Documentation/RCU/checklist.txt
@@ -221,3 +221,41 @@ over a rather long period of time, but improvements are always welcome!
disable irq on a given acquisition of that lock will result in
deadlock as soon as the RCU callback happens to interrupt that
acquisition's critical section.
+
+13. SRCU (srcu_read_lock(), srcu_read_unlock(), and synchronize_srcu())
+ may only be invoked from process context. Unlike other forms of
+ RCU, it -is- permissible to block in an SRCU read-side critical
+ section (demarked by srcu_read_lock() and srcu_read_unlock()),
+ hence the "SRCU": "sleepable RCU". Please note that if you
+ don't need to sleep in read-side critical sections, you should
+ be using RCU rather than SRCU, because RCU is almost always
+ faster and easier to use than is SRCU.
+
+ Also unlike other forms of RCU, explicit initialization
+ and cleanup is required via init_srcu_struct() and
+ cleanup_srcu_struct(). These are passed a "struct srcu_struct"
+ that defines the scope of a given SRCU domain. Once initialized,
+ the srcu_struct is passed to srcu_read_lock(), srcu_read_unlock()
+ and synchronize_srcu(). A given synchronize_srcu() waits only
+ for SRCU read-side critical sections governed by srcu_read_lock()
+ and srcu_read_unlock() calls that have been passd the same
+ srcu_struct. This property is what makes sleeping read-side
+ critical sections tolerable -- a given subsystem delays only
+ its own updates, not those of other subsystems using SRCU.
+ Therefore, SRCU is less prone to OOM the system than RCU would
+ be if RCU's read-side critical sections were permitted to
+ sleep.
+
+ The ability to sleep in read-side critical sections does not
+ come for free. First, corresponding srcu_read_lock() and
+ srcu_read_unlock() calls must be passed the same srcu_struct.
+ Second, grace-period-detection overhead is amortized only
+ over those updates sharing a given srcu_struct, rather than
+ being globally amortized as they are for other forms of RCU.
+ Therefore, SRCU should be used in preference to rw_semaphore
+ only in extremely read-intensive situations, or in situations
+ requiring SRCU's read-side deadlock immunity or low read-side
+ realtime latency.
+
+ Note that, rcu_assign_pointer() and rcu_dereference() relate to
+ SRCU just as they do to other forms of RCU.
diff --git a/Documentation/RCU/rcu.txt b/Documentation/RCU/rcu.txt
index 02e27bf..f84407c 100644
--- a/Documentation/RCU/rcu.txt
+++ b/Documentation/RCU/rcu.txt
@@ -45,7 +45,8 @@ o How can I see where RCU is currently used in the Linux kernel?
Search for "rcu_read_lock", "rcu_read_unlock", "call_rcu",
"rcu_read_lock_bh", "rcu_read_unlock_bh", "call_rcu_bh",
- "synchronize_rcu", and "synchronize_net".
+ "srcu_read_lock", "srcu_read_unlock", "synchronize_rcu",
+ "synchronize_net", and "synchronize_srcu".
o What guidelines should I follow when writing code that uses RCU?
diff --git a/Documentation/RCU/whatisRCU.txt b/Documentation/RCU/whatisRCU.txt
index 820fee2..e0d6d99 100644
--- a/Documentation/RCU/whatisRCU.txt
+++ b/Documentation/RCU/whatisRCU.txt
@@ -778,6 +778,8 @@ Markers for RCU read-side critical sections:
rcu_read_unlock
rcu_read_lock_bh
rcu_read_unlock_bh
+ srcu_read_lock
+ srcu_read_unlock
RCU pointer/list traversal:
@@ -804,6 +806,7 @@ RCU grace period:
synchronize_net
synchronize_sched
synchronize_rcu
+ synchronize_srcu
call_rcu
call_rcu_bh