[PATCH 4/4] locking/rwbase: Take care of ordering guarantee for fastpath reader

From: Peter Zijlstra
Date: Thu Sep 09 2021 - 07:04:27 EST


From: Boqun Feng <boqun.feng@xxxxxxxxx>

Readers of rwbase can lock and unlock without taking any inner lock, if
that happens, we need the ordering provided by atomic operations to
satisfy the ordering semantics of lock/unlock. Without that, considering
the follow case:

{ X = 0 initially }

CPU 0 CPU 1
===== =====
rt_write_lock();
X = 1
rt_write_unlock():
atomic_add(READER_BIAS - WRITER_BIAS, ->readers);
// ->readers is READER_BIAS.
rt_read_lock():
if ((r = atomic_read(->readers)) < 0) // True
atomic_try_cmpxchg(->readers, r, r + 1); // succeed.
<acquire the read lock via fast path>

r1 = X; // r1 may be 0, because nothing prevent the reordering
// of "X=1" and atomic_add() on CPU 1.

Therefore audit every usage of atomic operations that may happen in a
fast path, and add necessary barriers.

Signed-off-by: Boqun Feng <boqun.feng@xxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
kernel/locking/rwbase_rt.c | 21 +++++++++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 19 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

--- a/kernel/locking/rwbase_rt.c
+++ b/kernel/locking/rwbase_rt.c
@@ -41,6 +41,12 @@
* The risk of writer starvation is there, but the pathological use cases
* which trigger it are not necessarily the typical RT workloads.
*
+ * Fast-path orderings:
+ * The lock/unlock of readers can run in fast paths: lock and unlock are only
+ * atomic ops, and there is no inner lock to provide ACQUIRE and RELEASE
+ * semantics of rwbase_rt. Atomic ops should thus provide _acquire()
+ * and _release() (or stronger).
+ *
* Common code shared between RT rw_semaphore and rwlock
*/

@@ -53,6 +59,7 @@ static __always_inline int rwbase_read_t
* set.
*/
for (r = atomic_read(&rwb->readers); r < 0;) {
+ /* Fully-ordered if cmpxchg() succeeds, provides ACQUIRE */
if (likely(atomic_try_cmpxchg(&rwb->readers, &r, r + 1)))
return 1;
}
@@ -162,6 +169,8 @@ static __always_inline void rwbase_read_
/*
* rwb->readers can only hit 0 when a writer is waiting for the
* active readers to leave the critical section.
+ *
+ * dec_and_test() is fully ordered, provides RELEASE.
*/
if (unlikely(atomic_dec_and_test(&rwb->readers)))
__rwbase_read_unlock(rwb, state);
@@ -172,7 +181,11 @@ static inline void __rwbase_write_unlock
{
struct rt_mutex_base *rtm = &rwb->rtmutex;

- atomic_add(READER_BIAS - bias, &rwb->readers);
+ /*
+ * _release() is needed in case that reader is in fast path, pairing
+ * with atomic_try_cmpxchg() in rwbase_read_trylock(), provides RELEASE
+ */
+ (void)atomic_add_return_release(READER_BIAS - bias, &rwb->readers);
raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore(&rtm->wait_lock, flags);
rwbase_rtmutex_unlock(rtm);
}
@@ -201,7 +214,11 @@ static inline bool __rwbase_write_tryloc
/* Can do without CAS because we're serialized by wait_lock. */
lockdep_assert_held(&rwb->rtmutex.wait_lock);

- if (!atomic_read(&rwb->readers)) {
+ /*
+ * _acquire is needed in case the reader is in the fast path, pairing
+ * with rwbase_read_unlock(), provides ACQUIRE.
+ */
+ if (!atomic_read_acquire(&rwb->readers)) {
atomic_set(&rwb->readers, WRITER_BIAS);
return 1;
}