Re: [PATCH tip/core/rcu 21/21] drivers/vhost: Remove now-redundant read_barrier_depends()
From: Michael S. Tsirkin
Date: Tue Dec 05 2017 - 13:57:58 EST
On Tue, Dec 05, 2017 at 07:39:46PM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 05, 2017 at 08:31:20PM +0200, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
>
> > Apropos, READ_ONCE is now asymmetrical with WRITE_ONCE.
> >
> > I can read a pointer with READ_ONCE and be sure the value
> > is sane, but only if I also remember to put in smp_wmb before
> > WRITE_ONCE. Otherwise the pointer is ok but no guarantees
> > about the data pointed to.
>
> That was already the case on everything except Alpha. And the canonical
> match do the data dependency is store_release, not wmb.
Oh, interesting
static __always_inline void __write_once_size(volatile void *p, void *res, int size)
{
switch (size) {
case 1: *(volatile __u8 *)p = *(__u8 *)res; break;
case 2: *(volatile __u16 *)p = *(__u16 *)res; break;
case 4: *(volatile __u32 *)p = *(__u32 *)res; break;
case 8: *(volatile __u64 *)p = *(__u64 *)res; break;
default:
barrier();
__builtin_memcpy((void *)p, (const void *)res, size);
barrier();
}
}
#define WRITE_ONCE(x, val) \
({ \
union { typeof(x) __val; char __c[1]; } __u = \
{ .__val = (__force typeof(x)) (val) }; \
__write_once_size(&(x), __u.__c, sizeof(x)); \
__u.__val; \
})
I don't see WRITE_ONCE inserting any barriers, release or
write.
So it seems that on an architecture where writes can be reordered,
if I do
*pointer = 0xa;
WRITE_ONCE(array[x], pointer);
array write might bypass the pointer write,
and readers will read a stale value.
--
MST