rcu: Documentation update for CONFIG_PROVE_RCU

Adds a lockdep.txt file and updates checklist.txt and
whatisRCU.txt to reflect the new lockdep-enabled capabilities of
RCU.

Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: laijs@cn.fujitsu.com
Cc: dipankar@in.ibm.com
Cc: mathieu.desnoyers@polymtl.ca
Cc: josh@joshtriplett.org
Cc: dvhltc@us.ibm.com
Cc: niv@us.ibm.com
Cc: peterz@infradead.org
Cc: rostedt@goodmis.org
Cc: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu
Cc: dhowells@redhat.com
LKML-Reference: <1266887105-1528-13-git-send-email-paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
This commit is contained in:
Paul E. McKenney 2010-02-22 17:04:57 -08:00 committed by Ingo Molnar
parent e7b0a61b79
commit c598a070bc
4 changed files with 97 additions and 19 deletions

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@ -6,6 +6,8 @@ checklist.txt
- Review Checklist for RCU Patches
listRCU.txt
- Using RCU to Protect Read-Mostly Linked Lists
lockdep.txt
- RCU and lockdep checking
NMI-RCU.txt
- Using RCU to Protect Dynamic NMI Handlers
rcubarrier.txt

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@ -127,10 +127,14 @@ over a rather long period of time, but improvements are always welcome!
perfectly legal (if redundant) for update-side code to
use rcu_dereference() and the "_rcu()" list-traversal
primitives. This is particularly useful in code that
is common to readers and updaters. However, neither
rcu_dereference() nor the "_rcu()" list-traversal
primitives can substitute for a good concurrency design
coordinating among multiple updaters.
is common to readers and updaters. However, lockdep
will complain if you access rcu_dereference() outside
of an RCU read-side critical section. See lockdep.txt
to learn what to do about this.
Of course, neither rcu_dereference() nor the "_rcu()"
list-traversal primitives can substitute for a good
concurrency design coordinating among multiple updaters.
b. If the list macros are being used, the list_add_tail_rcu()
and list_add_rcu() primitives must be used in order
@ -249,7 +253,9 @@ over a rather long period of time, but improvements are always welcome!
must be protected by appropriate update-side locks. RCU
read-side critical sections are delimited by rcu_read_lock()
and rcu_read_unlock(), or by similar primitives such as
rcu_read_lock_bh() and rcu_read_unlock_bh().
rcu_read_lock_bh() and rcu_read_unlock_bh(), in which case
the matching rcu_dereference() primitive must be used in order
to keep lockdep happy, in this case, rcu_dereference_bh().
The reason that it is permissible to use RCU list-traversal
primitives when the update-side lock is held is that doing so
@ -302,15 +308,15 @@ over a rather long period of time, but improvements are always welcome!
not the case, a self-spawning RCU callback would prevent the
victim CPU from ever going offline.)
14. SRCU (srcu_read_lock(), srcu_read_unlock(), synchronize_srcu(),
and synchronize_srcu_expedited()) may only be invoked from
process context. Unlike other forms of RCU, it -is- permissible
to block in an SRCU read-side critical section (demarked by
srcu_read_lock() and srcu_read_unlock()), hence the "SRCU":
"sleepable RCU". Please note that if you don't need to sleep
in read-side critical sections, you should be using RCU rather
than SRCU, because RCU is almost always faster and easier to
use than is SRCU.
14. SRCU (srcu_read_lock(), srcu_read_unlock(), srcu_dereference(),
synchronize_srcu(), and synchronize_srcu_expedited()) may only
be invoked from process context. Unlike other forms of RCU, it
-is- permissible to block in an SRCU read-side critical section
(demarked by srcu_read_lock() and srcu_read_unlock()), hence the
"SRCU": "sleepable RCU". Please note that if you don't need
to sleep in read-side critical sections, you should be using
RCU rather than SRCU, because RCU is almost always faster and
easier to use than is SRCU.
Also unlike other forms of RCU, explicit initialization
and cleanup is required via init_srcu_struct() and

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@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
RCU and lockdep checking
All flavors of RCU have lockdep checking available, so that lockdep is
aware of when each task enters and leaves any flavor of RCU read-side
critical section. Each flavor of RCU is tracked separately (but note
that this is not the case in 2.6.32 and earlier). This allows lockdep's
tracking to include RCU state, which can sometimes help when debugging
deadlocks and the like.
In addition, RCU provides the following primitives that check lockdep's
state:
rcu_read_lock_held() for normal RCU.
rcu_read_lock_bh_held() for RCU-bh.
rcu_read_lock_sched_held() for RCU-sched.
srcu_read_lock_held() for SRCU.
These functions are conservative, and will therefore return 1 if they
aren't certain (for example, if CONFIG_DEBUG_LOCK_ALLOC is not set).
This prevents things like WARN_ON(!rcu_read_lock_held()) from giving false
positives when lockdep is disabled.
In addition, a separate kernel config parameter CONFIG_PROVE_RCU enables
checking of rcu_dereference() primitives:
rcu_dereference(p):
Check for RCU read-side critical section.
rcu_dereference_bh(p):
Check for RCU-bh read-side critical section.
rcu_dereference_sched(p):
Check for RCU-sched read-side critical section.
srcu_dereference(p, sp):
Check for SRCU read-side critical section.
rcu_dereference_check(p, c):
Use explicit check expression "c".
rcu_dereference_raw(p)
Don't check. (Use sparingly, if at all.)
The rcu_dereference_check() check expression can be any boolean
expression, but would normally include one of the rcu_read_lock_held()
family of functions and a lockdep expression. However, any boolean
expression can be used. For a moderately ornate example, consider
the following:
file = rcu_dereference_check(fdt->fd[fd],
rcu_read_lock_held() ||
lockdep_is_held(&files->file_lock) ||
atomic_read(&files->count) == 1);
This expression picks up the pointer "fdt->fd[fd]" in an RCU-safe manner,
and, if CONFIG_PROVE_RCU is configured, verifies that this expression
is used in:
1. An RCU read-side critical section, or
2. with files->file_lock held, or
3. on an unshared files_struct.
In case (1), the pointer is picked up in an RCU-safe manner for vanilla
RCU read-side critical sections, in case (2) the ->file_lock prevents
any change from taking place, and finally, in case (3) the current task
is the only task accessing the file_struct, again preventing any change
from taking place.
There are currently only "universal" versions of the rcu_assign_pointer()
and RCU list-/tree-traversal primitives, which do not (yet) check for
being in an RCU read-side critical section. In the future, separate
versions of these primitives might be created.

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@ -323,15 +323,17 @@ used as follows:
Defer Protect
a. synchronize_rcu() rcu_read_lock() / rcu_read_unlock()
call_rcu()
call_rcu() rcu_dereference()
b. call_rcu_bh() rcu_read_lock_bh() / rcu_read_unlock_bh()
rcu_dereference_bh()
c. synchronize_sched() rcu_read_lock_sched() / rcu_read_unlock_sched()
preempt_disable() / preempt_enable()
local_irq_save() / local_irq_restore()
hardirq enter / hardirq exit
NMI enter / NMI exit
rcu_dereference_sched()
These three mechanisms are used as follows:
@ -781,9 +783,8 @@ Linux-kernel source code, but it helps to have a full list of the
APIs, since there does not appear to be a way to categorize them
in docbook. Here is the list, by category.
RCU pointer/list traversal:
RCU list traversal:
rcu_dereference
list_for_each_entry_rcu
hlist_for_each_entry_rcu
hlist_nulls_for_each_entry_rcu
@ -809,7 +810,7 @@ RCU: Critical sections Grace period Barrier
rcu_read_lock synchronize_net rcu_barrier
rcu_read_unlock synchronize_rcu
synchronize_rcu_expedited
rcu_dereference synchronize_rcu_expedited
call_rcu
@ -817,7 +818,7 @@ bh: Critical sections Grace period Barrier
rcu_read_lock_bh call_rcu_bh rcu_barrier_bh
rcu_read_unlock_bh synchronize_rcu_bh
synchronize_rcu_bh_expedited
rcu_dereference_bh synchronize_rcu_bh_expedited
sched: Critical sections Grace period Barrier
@ -826,12 +827,14 @@ sched: Critical sections Grace period Barrier
rcu_read_unlock_sched call_rcu_sched
[preempt_disable] synchronize_sched_expedited
[and friends]
rcu_dereference_sched
SRCU: Critical sections Grace period Barrier
srcu_read_lock synchronize_srcu N/A
srcu_read_unlock synchronize_srcu_expedited
srcu_dereference
SRCU: Initialization/cleanup
init_srcu_struct