Re: [PATCH 2/2] membarrier: riscv: Provide core serializing command

[Andrea Parri]

> I am concerned about the possibility that this change lacks two barriers in the
> following scenario:
> 
> On a transition from uthread -> uthread on [CPU 0], from a thread belonging to
> another mm to a thread belonging to the mm [!mm -> mm] for which a concurrent
> membarrier sync-core is done on [CPU 1]:
> 
> - [CPU 1] sets all bits in the mm icache_stale_mask [A]. There are no barriers
>   associated with these stores.
> 
> - [CPU 0] store to rq->curr [B] (by the scheduler) vs [CPU 1] loads rq->curr [C]
>   within membarrier to decide if the IPI should be skipped. Let's say CPU 1 observes
>   cpu_rq(0)->curr->mm != mm, so it skips the IPI.
> 
> - This means membarrier relies on switch_mm() to issue the sync-core.
> 
> - [CPU 0] switch_mm() loads [D] the icache_stale_mask. If the bit is zero, switch_mm()
>   may incorrectly skip the sync-core.
> 
> AFAIU, [C] can be reordered before [A] because there is no barrier between those
> operations within membarrier. I suspect it can cause the switch_mm() code to skip
> a needed sync-core.
> 
> AFAIU, [D] can be reordered before [B] because there is no documented barrier
> between those operations within the scheduler, which can also cause switch_mm()
> to skip a needed sync-core.
> 
> We possibly have a similar scenario for uthread->uthread when the scheduler
> switches between mm -> !mm.
> 
> One way to fix this would be to add the following barriers:
> 
> - A smp_mb() between [A] and [C], possibly just after cpumask_setall() in
>   prepare_sync_core_cmd(), with comments detailing the ordering it guarantees,
> - A smp_mb() between [B] and [D], possibly just before cpumask_test_cpu() in
>   flush_icache_deferred(), with appropriate comments.
> 
> Am I missing something ?

Thanks for the detailed analysis.

AFAIU, the following barrier (in membarrier_private_expedited())

	/*
	 * Matches memory barriers around rq->curr modification in
	 * scheduler.
	 */
	smp_mb();	/* system call entry is not a mb. */

can serve the purpose of ordering [A] before [C] (to be documented in v2).

But I agree that [B] and [D] are unordered /missing suitable synchronization.
Worse, RISC-V has currently no full barrier after [B] and before returning to
user-space: I'm thinking (inspired by the PowerPC implementation),

diff --git a/arch/riscv/mm/context.c b/arch/riscv/mm/context.c
index 217fd4de61342..f63222513076d 100644
--- a/arch/riscv/mm/context.c
+++ b/arch/riscv/mm/context.c
@@ -323,6 +323,23 @@ void switch_mm(struct mm_struct *prev, struct mm_struct *next,
 	if (unlikely(prev == next))
 		return;
 
+#if defined(CONFIG_MEMBARRIER) && defined(CONFIG_SMP)
+	/*
+	 * The membarrier system call requires a full memory barrier
+	 * after storing to rq->curr, before going back to user-space.
+	 *
+	 * Only need the full barrier when switching between processes:
+	 * barrier when switching from kernel to userspace is not
+	 * required here, given that it is implied by mmdrop(); barrier
+	 * when switching from userspace to kernel is not needed after
+	 * store to rq->curr.
+	 */
+	if (unlikely(atomic_read(&next->membarrier_state) &
+		     (MEMBARRIER_STATE_PRIVATE_EXPEDITED |
+		      MEMBARRIER_STATE_GLOBAL_EXPEDITED)) && prev)
+		smp_mb();
+#endif
+
 	/*
 	 * Mark the current MM context as inactive, and the next as
 	 * active.  This is at least used by the icache flushing
diff --git a/kernel/sched/core.c b/kernel/sched/core.c
index a708d225c28e8..a1c749fddd095 100644
--- a/kernel/sched/core.c
+++ b/kernel/sched/core.c
@@ -6670,8 +6670,9 @@ static void __sched notrace __schedule(unsigned int sched_mode)
 		 *
 		 * Here are the schemes providing that barrier on the
 		 * various architectures:
-		 * - mm ? switch_mm() : mmdrop() for x86, s390, sparc, PowerPC.
-		 *   switch_mm() rely on membarrier_arch_switch_mm() on PowerPC.
+		 * - mm ? switch_mm() : mmdrop() for x86, s390, sparc, PowerPC,
+		 *   RISC-V.  switch_mm() relies on membarrier_arch_switch_mm()
+		 *   on PowerPC.
 		 * - finish_lock_switch() for weakly-ordered
 		 *   architectures where spin_unlock is a full barrier,
 		 * - switch_to() for arm64 (weakly-ordered, spin_unlock

The silver lining is that similar changes (probably as a separate/preliminary
patch) also restore the desired order between [B] and [D] AFAIU; so with them,
2/2 would just need additions to document the above SYNC_CORE scenario.

Thoughts?

  Andrea