Re: [TOMOYO #10 (linux-next) 7/8] File operation restriction part.

From: Paul E. McKenney
Date: Fri Oct 17 2008 - 10:56:44 EST


On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 05:32:43PM +0900, Kentaro Takeda wrote:
> Quoting from http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/2/2/255
> > Similarly, the smp_read_barrier_depends() is only for initialization
> > of something that is about to enter the list. As with the smp_wmb()
> > primitive, smp_read_barrier_depends() also is not to protect against
> > freeing. Instead, it is rcu_read_lock() and rcu_read_unlock() that
> > protect against freeing.
>
> We don't need to use rcu_read_lock() and rcu_read_unlock() because
> we don't free elements in a list. I see.

Agreed!

> However, to ensure the reader gets up-to-date value, we need to use
> smp_read_barrier_depends() (which is expanded to "mb()" for SMP on
> Alpha, "read_barrier_depends()" for SMP on H8300, "((void)0)" for SMP
> on M68K-nommu, "((void)0)" for M68K, "do { } while (0)" otherwise)
> whenever the reader fetches an element in a list.

Yep. You will also need the ACCESS_ONCE() on the pointer fetch in order
to suppress aggressive compiler optimizations. The rcu_dereference()
primitive packages them up nicely.

> Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > But fair enough. How about the following?
> >
> > #define worm_dereference() rcu_dereference()
> > #define worm_assign_pointer() rcu_assign_pointer()
> >
> So, I understood that the rcu_dereference() and rcu_assign_pointer()
> are not only for RCU. They are needed to ensure the reader gets
> up-to-date value. Then, their names should be var_dereference() and
> var_assign_pointer() or something, shouldn't they? The "rcu_" prefix
> and comments on rcu_dereference in include/linux/rcupdate.h sound for
> me that they are used for variables protected by RCU locking
> mechanism only...

Well, there are 200+ uses of rcu_dereference() for RCU, so it would
99.5%+ accurate to retain the "rcu_" prefix. ;-)

Once we have several non-RCU uses, we can probably do a much better
job of coming up with a good name for the underlying independent-of-RCU
primitive. So we should stick with rcu_dereference() as the name of the
underlying primitive for now, and re-evaluate the naming in a year or
after another five non-RCU uses of rcu_dereference() appear, whichever
comes later. (My current guess for names are "pointer_subscribe()"
for rcu_dereference() and "pointer_publish()" for rcu_assign_pointer(),
but who knows?)

Fair enough?

> You are suggesting to explicitly call rcu_assign_pointer() (which
> will call smp_wmb()) and rcu_dereference() (which will call
> smp_read_barrier_depends()). But I think that the various cache
> invalidations driven by the workload will call rcu_assign_pointer()
> and rcu_dereference() sooner or later. So, if the reader can tolerate
> reading non-up-to-date value (in fact, TOMOYO can), isn't there a
> choice to omit rcu_assign_pointer() and rcu_dereference() (which will
> cost "mb()" for SMP on Alpha)?

TOMOYO can tolerate reading the complete garbage that would appear if
the pointer was assigned before the pointed-to fields are initialized?
I must confess that I am having a hard time believing that. Please
explain how this works.

Thanx, Paul
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