Re: [RFC][PATCH] mips: Fix arch_spin_unlock()

[Peter Zijlstra]

On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 11:43:48AM +0000, Will Deacon wrote:
> Do you know whether a SYNC 18 (RELEASE) followed in program order by a
> SYNC 17 (ACQUIRE) creates a full barrier (i.e. something like SYNC 16)?
> 
> If not, you may need to implement smp_mb__after_unlock_lock for RCU
> to ensure globally transitive unlock->lock ordering should you decide
> to relax your locking barriers.

You know that is a tricky question. Maybe its easier if you give the 3
cpu litmus test that goes with it.

Maciej, the tricky point is what, if any, effect the
SYNC_RELEASE+SYNC_ACQUIRE pair has on an unrelated CPU. Please review
the TRANSITIVITY section in Documentation/memory-barriers.txt and
replace <general barrier> with the RELEASE+ACQUIRE pair.

We've all (Will, Paul and me) had much 'fun' trying to decipher the
MIPS64r6 manual but failed to reach a conclusion on this.