[PATCH v2 6/8] perf auxtrace: Drop legacy __sync functions

[Leo Yan]

The main purpose for using __sync built-in functions is to support
compat mode for 32-bit perf with 64-bit kernel.  But using these
built-in functions might cause couple potential issues.

Firstly, __sync functions originally support Intel Itanium processoer [1]
but it cannot promise to support all 32-bit archs.  Now these
functions have become the legacy functions.

As Peter also pointed out the logic issue in the function
auxtrace_mmap__write_tail(), it does a cmpxchg with 0 values to load
old_tail, and then executes a further cmpxchg with old_tail to write
the new tail.  If consider the aux_tail might be assigned to '0' in the
middle of loops, this can introduce mess for AUX buffer if the kernel
fetches the temporary value '0'.

Considering __sync functions cannot really fix the 64-bit value
atomicity on 32-bit archs, thus this patch drops __sync functions.

Credits to Peter for detailed analysis.

[1] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/_005f_005fsync-Builtins.html#g_t_005f_005fsync-Builtins

Suggested-by: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Leo Yan <leo.yan@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
 tools/perf/util/auxtrace.h | 19 -------------------
 1 file changed, 19 deletions(-)

diff --git a/tools/perf/util/auxtrace.h b/tools/perf/util/auxtrace.h
index 42b7ef811bde..e625bc76cdde 100644
--- a/tools/perf/util/auxtrace.h
+++ b/tools/perf/util/auxtrace.h
@@ -432,12 +432,6 @@ struct auxtrace_cache;
 
 #ifdef HAVE_AUXTRACE_SUPPORT
 
-/*
- * In snapshot mode the mmapped page is read-only which makes using
- * __sync_val_compare_and_swap() problematic.  However, snapshot mode expects
- * the buffer is not updated while the snapshot is made (e.g. Intel PT disables
- * the event) so there is not a race anyway.
- */
 static inline u64 auxtrace_mmap__read_snapshot_head(struct auxtrace_mmap *mm)
 {
 	struct perf_event_mmap_page *pc = mm->userpg;
@@ -451,11 +445,7 @@ static inline u64 auxtrace_mmap__read_snapshot_head(struct auxtrace_mmap *mm)
 static inline u64 auxtrace_mmap__read_head(struct auxtrace_mmap *mm)
 {
 	struct perf_event_mmap_page *pc = mm->userpg;
-#if BITS_PER_LONG == 64 || !defined(HAVE_SYNC_COMPARE_AND_SWAP_SUPPORT)
 	u64 head = READ_ONCE(pc->aux_head);
-#else
-	u64 head = __sync_val_compare_and_swap(&pc->aux_head, 0, 0);
-#endif
 
 	/* Ensure all reads are done after we read the head */
 	smp_rmb();
@@ -465,19 +455,10 @@ static inline u64 auxtrace_mmap__read_head(struct auxtrace_mmap *mm)
 static inline void auxtrace_mmap__write_tail(struct auxtrace_mmap *mm, u64 tail)
 {
 	struct perf_event_mmap_page *pc = mm->userpg;
-#if BITS_PER_LONG != 64 && defined(HAVE_SYNC_COMPARE_AND_SWAP_SUPPORT)
-	u64 old_tail;
-#endif
 
 	/* Ensure all reads are done before we write the tail out */
 	smp_mb();
-#if BITS_PER_LONG == 64 || !defined(HAVE_SYNC_COMPARE_AND_SWAP_SUPPORT)
 	pc->aux_tail = tail;
-#else
-	do {
-		old_tail = __sync_val_compare_and_swap(&pc->aux_tail, 0, 0);
-	} while (!__sync_bool_compare_and_swap(&pc->aux_tail, old_tail, tail));
-#endif
 }
 
 int auxtrace_mmap__mmap(struct auxtrace_mmap *mm,
-- 
2.25.1