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Documentation/locking/locktypes: Further clarifications and wordsmithing 

The documentation of rw_semaphores is wrong as it claims that the non-owner
reader release is not supported by RT. That's just history biased memory
distortion.

Split the 'Owner semantics' section up and add separate sections for
semaphore and rw_semaphore to reflect reality.

Aside of that the following updates are done:

 - Add pseudo code to document the spinlock state preserving mechanism on
   PREEMPT_RT

 - Wordsmith the bitspinlock and lock nesting sections

Co-developed-by: Paul McKenney <paulmck@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Paul McKenney <paulmck@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Acked-by: Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <bigeasy@linutronix.de>
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/87wo78y5yy.fsf@nanos.tec.linutronix.de
This commit is contained in:
Thomas Gleixner 2020-03-25 13:27:49 +01:00
parent cf226c42b2
commit 7ecc6aa522
1 changed files with 98 additions and 50 deletions
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148
Documentation/locking/locktypes.rst
View File

@ -67,6 +67,17 @@ can have suffixes which apply further protections:
_irqsave/restore() Save and disable / restore interrupt disabled state
=================== ====================================================
Owner semantics
===============
The aforementioned lock types except semaphores have strict owner
semantics:
The context (task) that acquired the lock must release it.
rw_semaphores have a special interface which allows non-owner release for
readers.
rtmutex
=======
@ -83,6 +94,51 @@ interrupt handlers and soft interrupts. This conversion allows spinlock_t
and rwlock_t to be implemented via RT-mutexes.
semaphore
=========
semaphore is a counting semaphore implementation.
Semaphores are often used for both serialization and waiting, but new use
cases should instead use separate serialization and wait mechanisms, such
as mutexes and completions.
semaphores and PREEMPT_RT
----------------------------
PREEMPT_RT does not change the semaphore implementation because counting
semaphores have no concept of owners, thus preventing PREEMPT_RT from
providing priority inheritance for semaphores. After all, an unknown
owner cannot be boosted. As a consequence, blocking on semaphores can
result in priority inversion.
rw_semaphore
============
rw_semaphore is a multiple readers and single writer lock mechanism.
On non-PREEMPT_RT kernels the implementation is fair, thus preventing
writer starvation.
rw_semaphore complies by default with the strict owner semantics, but there
exist special-purpose interfaces that allow non-owner release for readers.
These interfaces work independent of the kernel configuration.
rw_semaphore and PREEMPT_RT
---------------------------
PREEMPT_RT kernels map rw_semaphore to a separate rt_mutex-based
implementation, thus changing the fairness:
Because an rw_semaphore writer cannot grant its priority to multiple
readers, a preempted low-priority reader will continue holding its lock,
thus starving even high-priority writers. In contrast, because readers
can grant their priority to a writer, a preempted low-priority writer will
have its priority boosted until it releases the lock, thus preventing that
writer from starving readers.
raw_spinlock_t and spinlock_t
=============================
@ -102,7 +158,7 @@ critical section is tiny, thus avoiding RT-mutex overhead.
spinlock_t
----------
The semantics of spinlock_t change with the state of CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT.
The semantics of spinlock_t change with the state of PREEMPT_RT.
On a non PREEMPT_RT enabled kernel spinlock_t is mapped to raw_spinlock_t
and has exactly the same semantics.
@ -140,7 +196,16 @@ PREEMPT_RT kernels preserve all other spinlock_t semantics:
kernels leave task state untouched. However, PREEMPT_RT must change
task state if the task blocks during acquisition. Therefore, it saves
the current task state before blocking and the corresponding lock wakeup
restores it.
restores it, as shown below::
task->state = TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE
lock()
block()
task->saved_state = task->state
task->state = TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE
schedule()
lock wakeup
task->state = task->saved_state
Other types of wakeups would normally unconditionally set the task state
to RUNNING, but that does not work here because the task must remain
@ -148,7 +213,22 @@ PREEMPT_RT kernels preserve all other spinlock_t semantics:
wakeup attempts to awaken a task blocked waiting for a spinlock, it
instead sets the saved state to RUNNING. Then, when the lock
acquisition completes, the lock wakeup sets the task state to the saved
state, in this case setting it to RUNNING.
state, in this case setting it to RUNNING::
task->state = TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE
lock()
block()
task->saved_state = task->state
task->state = TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE
schedule()
non lock wakeup
task->saved_state = TASK_RUNNING
lock wakeup
task->state = task->saved_state
This ensures that the real wakeup cannot be lost.
rwlock_t
========
@ -228,17 +308,16 @@ preemption on PREEMPT_RT kernels::
bit spinlocks
-------------
Bit spinlocks are problematic for PREEMPT_RT as they cannot be easily
substituted by an RT-mutex based implementation for obvious reasons.
PREEMPT_RT cannot substitute bit spinlocks because a single bit is too
small to accommodate an RT-mutex. Therefore, the semantics of bit
spinlocks are preserved on PREEMPT_RT kernels, so that the raw_spinlock_t
caveats also apply to bit spinlocks.
The semantics of bit spinlocks are preserved on PREEMPT_RT kernels and the
caveats vs. raw_spinlock_t apply.
Some bit spinlocks are substituted by regular spinlock_t for PREEMPT_RT but
this requires conditional (#ifdef'ed) code changes at the usage site while
the spinlock_t substitution is simply done by the compiler and the
conditionals are restricted to header files and core implementation of the
locking primitives and the usage sites do not require any changes.
Some bit spinlocks are replaced with regular spinlock_t for PREEMPT_RT
using conditional (#ifdef'ed) code changes at the usage site. In contrast,
usage-site changes are not needed for the spinlock_t substitution.
Instead, conditionals in header files and the core locking implemementation
enable the compiler to do the substitution transparently.
Lock type nesting rules
@ -254,46 +333,15 @@ The most basic rules are:
- Spinning lock types can nest inside sleeping lock types.
These rules apply in general independent of CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT.
These constraints apply both in PREEMPT_RT and otherwise.
As PREEMPT_RT changes the lock category of spinlock_t and rwlock_t from
spinning to sleeping this has obviously restrictions how they can nest with
raw_spinlock_t.
This results in the following nest ordering:
The fact that PREEMPT_RT changes the lock category of spinlock_t and
rwlock_t from spinning to sleeping means that they cannot be acquired while
holding a raw spinlock. This results in the following nesting ordering:
1) Sleeping locks
2) spinlock_t and rwlock_t
3) raw_spinlock_t and bit spinlocks
Lockdep is aware of these constraints to ensure that they are respected.
Owner semantics
===============
Most lock types in the Linux kernel have strict owner semantics, i.e. the
context (task) which acquires a lock has to release it.
There are two exceptions:
- semaphores
- rwsems
semaphores have no owner semantics for historical reason, and as such
trylock and release operations can be called from any context. They are
often used for both serialization and waiting purposes. That's generally
discouraged and should be replaced by separate serialization and wait
mechanisms, such as mutexes and completions.
rwsems have grown interfaces which allow non owner release for special
purposes. This usage is problematic on PREEMPT_RT because PREEMPT_RT
substitutes all locking primitives except semaphores with RT-mutex based
implementations to provide priority inheritance for all lock types except
the truly spinning ones. Priority inheritance on ownerless locks is
obviously impossible.
For now the rwsem non-owner release excludes code which utilizes it from
being used on PREEMPT_RT enabled kernels. In same cases this can be
mitigated by disabling portions of the code, in other cases the complete
functionality has to be disabled until a workable solution has been found.
Lockdep will complain if these constraints are violated, both in
PREEMPT_RT and otherwise.