Re: BUG report about ipt_do_table( )

[Will Deacon]

On Fri, Oct 11, 2013 at 02:50:24AM +0100, Wang, Yalin wrote:
> Hi  Will,

Hello again,

> Maybe I know your meaning ,
> If it use spinlock to protected the shared data,
> The bug will not happen, because spinlock will 
> Use DSB( )  to sync .

Actually, the dsb is for something else (the sev). It is the smp_mb() call
which guarantees the ordering of critical sections with respect to spinlock
operations.

> Unluckily, here, it use a special seqcount_t( ) (see get_counters( ) function)

Well, there is a comment about a write_lock being held, so you should be ok
if that's true. The issue I saw was with the newinfo population, as I
described in my earlier mail.

> To make sure there is no others using the old data,
> Before release the old data, this is much like RCU
> Work, but RCU use rcu_assign_pointer( ) -->
> Which use smp_wmb( ) , so it's safe,  am I right ?

RCU is safe. There are *many* weakly ordered architectures on which Linux
runs, so I don't think you have to worry too much about the core data
structures and locking/synchronisation/atomic primitives. The major scope
for errors is in lockless code, where the barrier usage is explicit.

> In my patch, I use mb( ), because this macro
> Is DSB( ) , while smp_wmb( ) is DMS( ),
> I just think DSB is much strict than DMS,
> mmm..  so , DSM( )  or DMS ( )  are both ok ?

I think you're getting confused with your barriers. We have two memory
barriers on ARM: dmb and dsb. dmb is sufficient to enforce ordering of
observability. dsb is used to enforce completion.

> The whitepaper I use is here:
> https://www.google.com/#q=cortex+a15+microarchitecture
> 
> the first: [PDF] Exploring the Design of the Cortex-A15 Processor - ARM
> 
> I just search in Google, and you know that qcom don't release
> Much document about its krait cpu's micro architecture details,
> I just use cortex-a15 for a reference, I am not sure if their 
> pipeline ( load/store unit) are the same,

I think the lawyers would have a field day if the pipelines were the same!
You really can't use an A15 slide-deck to infer micro-architectural details
about Krait.

Please can you test the patch I sent you yesterday?

Will
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