Re: [RFC PATCH v2] memory-barriers: remove smp_mb__after_unlock_lock()

[Peter Hurley]

On 07/13/2015 02:23 PM, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 05:54:47PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
>> On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 03:21:10PM +0100, Will Deacon wrote:
>>> On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 03:09:15PM +0100, Will Deacon wrote:
>>>> On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 02:11:43PM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 01:15:04PM +0100, Will Deacon wrote:
>>>>>> smp_mb__after_unlock_lock is used to promote an UNLOCK + LOCK sequence
>>>>>> into a full memory barrier.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> However:
>>>>>
>>>>>>   - The barrier only applies to UNLOCK + LOCK, not general
>>>>>>     RELEASE + ACQUIRE operations
>>>>>
>>>>> No it does too; note that on ppc both acquire and release use lwsync and
>>>>> two lwsyncs do not make a sync.
>>>>
>>>> Really? IIUC, that means smp_mb__after_unlock_lock needs to be a full
>>>> barrier on all architectures implementing smp_store_release as smp_mb() +
>>>> STORE, otherwise the following isn't ordered:
>>>>
>>>>   RELEASE X
>>>>   smp_mb__after_unlock_lock()
>>>>   ACQUIRE Y
>>>>
>>>> On 32-bit ARM (at least), the ACQUIRE can be observed before the RELEASE.
>>>
>>> I knew we'd had this conversation before ;)
>>>
>>>   http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20150120093443.GA11596@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>> Ha! yes. And I had indeed forgotten about this argument.
>>
>> However I think we should look at the insides of the critical sections;
>> for example (from Documentation/memory-barriers.txt):
>>
>> "       *A = a;
>>         RELEASE M
>>         ACQUIRE N
>>         *B = b;
>>
>> could occur as:
>>
>>         ACQUIRE N, STORE *B, STORE *A, RELEASE M"
>>
>> This could not in fact happen, even though we could flip M and N, A and
>> B will remain strongly ordered.
>>
>> That said, I don't think this could even happen on PPC because we have
>> load_acquire and store_release, this means that:
>>
>> 	*A = a
>> 	lwsync
>> 	store_release M
>> 	load_acquire N
>> 	lwsync
> 
> Presumably the lwsync instructions are part of the store_release and
> load_acquire?
> 
>> 	*B = b
>>
>> And since the store to M is wrapped inside two lwsync there must be
>> strong store order, and because the load from N is equally wrapped in
>> two lwsyncs there must also be strong load order.
>>
>> In fact, no store/load can cross from before the first lwsync to after
>> the latter and the other way around.
>>
>> So in that respect it does provide full load-store ordering. What it
>> does not provide is order for M and N, nor does it provide transitivity,
>> but looking at our documentation I'm not at all sure we guarantee that
>> in any case.
> 
> I have no idea what the other thread is doing, so I put together the
> following litmus test, guessing reverse order, inverse operations,
> and full ordering:
> 
> 	PPC peterz.2015.07.13a
> 	""
> 	{
> 	0:r1=1; 0:r2=a; 0:r3=b; 0:r4=m; 0:r5=n;
> 	1:r1=1; 1:r2=a; 1:r3=b; 1:r4=m; 1:r5=n;
> 	}
> 	 P0            | P1            ;
> 	 stw r1,0(r2)  | lwz r10,0(r3) ;
> 	 lwsync        | sync          ;
> 	 stw r1,0(r4)  | stw r1,0(r5)  ;
> 	 lwz r10,0(r5) | sync          ;
> 	 lwsync        | lwz r11,0(r4) ;
> 	 stw r1,0(r3)  | sync          ;
> 		       | lwz r12,0(r2) ;
> 	exists
> 	(0:r10=0 /\ 1:r10=1 /\ 1:r11=1 /\ 1:r12=1)
> 
> See http://lwn.net/Articles/608550/ and http://lwn.net/Articles/470681/
> for information on tools that operate on these litmus tests.  (Both
> the herd and ppcmem tools agree, as is usually the case.)
> 
> Of the 16 possible combinations of values loaded, the following seven
> can happen:
> 
> 	0:r10=0; 1:r10=0; 1:r11=0; 1:r12=0;
> 	0:r10=0; 1:r10=0; 1:r11=0; 1:r12=1;
> 	0:r10=0; 1:r10=0; 1:r11=1; 1:r12=1;
> 	0:r10=0; 1:r10=1; 1:r11=1; 1:r12=1;
> 	0:r10=1; 1:r10=0; 1:r11=0; 1:r12=0;
> 	0:r10=1; 1:r10=0; 1:r11=0; 1:r12=1;
> 	0:r10=1; 1:r10=0; 1:r11=1; 1:r12=1;
> 
> P0's store to "m" and load from "n" can clearly be misordered, as there
> is nothing to order them.  And all four possible outcomes for 0:r10 and
> 1:r11 are seen, as expected.
> 
> Given that smp_store_release() is only guaranteed to order against prior
> operations and smp_load_acquire() is only guaranteed to order against
> subsequent operations, P0's load from "n" can be misordered with its
> store to "a", and as expected, all four possible outcomes for 0:r10 and
> 1:r12 are observed.
> 
> P0's pairs of stores should all be ordered:
> 
> o	"a" and "m" -> 1:r11=1 and 1:r12=0 cannot happen, as expected.
> 
> o	"a" and "b" -> 1:r10=1 and 1:r12=0 cannot happen, as expected.
> 
> o	"m" and "b" -> 1:r10=1 and 1:r11=0 cannot happen, as expected.
> 
> So smp_load_acquire() orders against all subsequent operations, but not
> necessarily against any prior ones, and smp_store_release() orders against
> all prior operations but not necessarily against any subsequent onse.
> But additional stray orderings are permitted, as is the case here.
> Which is in fact what these operations are defined to do.
> 
> Does that answer the question, or am I missing the point?

Yes, it shows that smp_mb__after_unlock_lock() has no purpose, since it
is defined only for PowerPC and your test above just showed that for
the sequence

  store a
  UNLOCK M
  LOCK N
  store b

a and b is always observed as an ordered pair {a,b}.

Additionally, the assertion in Documentation/memory_barriers.txt that
the sequence above can be reordered as

  LOCK N
  store b
  store a
  UNLOCK M

is not true on any existing arch in Linux.

Regards,
Peter Hurley

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