linux-stable/mm
Tejun Heo 5b990546e3 mempool: fix and document synchronization and memory barrier usage
mempool_alloc/free() use undocumented smp_mb()'s.  The code is slightly
broken and misleading.

The lockless part is in mempool_free().  It wants to determine whether the
item being freed needs to be returned to the pool or backing allocator
without grabbing pool->lock.  Two things need to be guaranteed for correct
operation.

1. pool->curr_nr + #allocated should never dip below pool->min_nr.
2. Waiters shouldn't be left dangling.

For #1, The only necessary condition is that curr_nr visible at free is
from after the allocation of the element being freed (details in the
comment).  For most cases, this is true without any barrier but there can
be fringe cases where the allocated pointer is passed to the freeing task
without going through memory barriers.  To cover this case, wmb is
necessary before returning from allocation and rmb is necessary before
reading curr_nr.  IOW,

	ALLOCATING TASK			FREEING TASK

	update pool state after alloc;
	wmb();
	pass pointer to freeing task;
					read pointer;
					rmb();
					read pool state to free;

The current code doesn't have wmb after pool update during allocation and
may theoretically, on machines where unlock doesn't behave as full wmb,
lead to pool depletion and deadlock.  smp_wmb() needs to be added after
successful allocation from reserved elements and smp_mb() in
mempool_free() can be replaced with smp_rmb().

For #2, the waiter needs to add itself to waitqueue and then check the
wait condition and the waker needs to update the wait condition and then
wake up.  Because waitqueue operations always go through full spinlock
synchronization, there is no need for extra memory barriers.

Furthermore, mempool_alloc() is already holding pool->lock when it decides
that it needs to wait.  There is no reason to do unlock - add waitqueue -
test condition again.  It can simply add itself to waitqueue while holding
pool->lock and then unlock and sleep.

This patch adds smp_wmb() after successful allocation from reserved pool,
replaces smp_mb() in mempool_free() with smp_rmb() and extend pool->lock
over waitqueue addition.  More importantly, it explains what memory
barriers do and how the lockless testing is correct.

-v2: Oleg pointed out that unlock doesn't imply wmb.  Added explicit
     smp_wmb() after successful allocation from reserved pool and
     updated comments accordingly.

Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Cc: "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2012-01-10 16:30:45 -08:00
..
backing-dev.c freezer: implement and use kthread_freezable_should_stop() 2011-11-21 12:32:23 -08:00
bootmem.c mm: bootmem: try harder to free pages in bulk 2012-01-10 16:30:45 -08:00
bounce.c Merge branch 'modsplit-Oct31_2011' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/paulg/linux 2011-11-06 19:44:47 -08:00
cleancache.c mm: cleancache core ops functions and config 2011-05-26 10:01:36 -06:00
compaction.c mm: compaction: push isolate search base of compact control one pfn ahead 2012-01-10 16:30:44 -08:00
debug-pagealloc.c debug-pagealloc: add support for highmem pages 2011-10-31 17:30:48 -07:00
dmapool.c mm: fix implicit stat.h usage in dmapool.c 2011-10-31 09:20:12 -04:00
fadvise.c fadvise: only initiate writeback for specified range with FADV_DONTNEED 2012-01-10 16:30:43 -08:00
failslab.c switch debugfs to umode_t 2012-01-03 22:54:56 -05:00
filemap.c mm: filemap: pass __GFP_WRITE from grab_cache_page_write_begin() 2012-01-10 16:30:43 -08:00
filemap_xip.c mm: Map most files to use export.h instead of module.h 2011-10-31 09:20:12 -04:00
fremap.c mm: delete various needless include <linux/module.h> 2011-10-31 09:20:11 -04:00
highmem.c Merge branch 'modsplit-Oct31_2011' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/paulg/linux 2011-11-06 19:44:47 -08:00
huge_memory.c thp: reduce khugepaged freezing latency 2011-12-09 07:50:28 -08:00
hugetlb.c mm: hugetlb: fix pgoff computation when unmapping page from vma 2012-01-10 16:30:45 -08:00
hwpoison-inject.c Fix common misspellings 2011-03-31 11:26:23 -03:00
init-mm.c atomic: use <linux/atomic.h> 2011-07-26 16:49:47 -07:00
internal.h mm: thp: tail page refcounting fix 2011-11-02 16:06:57 -07:00
Kconfig Merge branch 'master' into x86/memblock 2011-11-28 09:46:22 -08:00
Kconfig.debug mm: more intensive memory corruption debugging 2012-01-10 16:30:42 -08:00
kmemcheck.c
kmemleak-test.c kmemleak: remove memset by using kzalloc 2011-01-27 18:31:51 +00:00
kmemleak.c mm: Map most files to use export.h instead of module.h 2011-10-31 09:20:12 -04:00
ksm.c oom: fix race while temporarily setting current's oom_score_adj 2011-10-31 17:30:45 -07:00
maccess.c mm: Map most files to use export.h instead of module.h 2011-10-31 09:20:12 -04:00
madvise.c fs: kill i_alloc_sem 2011-07-20 20:47:46 -04:00
Makefile Cross Memory Attach 2011-10-31 17:30:44 -07:00
memblock.c memblock: Reimplement memblock allocation using reverse free area iterator 2011-12-08 10:22:09 -08:00
memcontrol.c Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net 2012-01-09 14:46:52 -08:00
memory-failure.c Merge branch 'modsplit-Oct31_2011' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/paulg/linux 2011-11-06 19:44:47 -08:00
memory.c Merge branch 'modsplit-Oct31_2011' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/paulg/linux 2011-11-06 19:44:47 -08:00
memory_hotplug.c mm: Map most files to use export.h instead of module.h 2011-10-31 09:20:12 -04:00
mempolicy.c mm/mempolicy.c: mpol_equal(): use bool 2012-01-10 16:30:45 -08:00
mempool.c mempool: fix and document synchronization and memory barrier usage 2012-01-10 16:30:45 -08:00
migrate.c mm/migrate.c: cleanup comment for migration_entry_wait() 2012-01-10 16:30:45 -08:00
mincore.c mm: clarify the radix_tree exceptional cases 2011-08-03 14:25:24 -10:00
mlock.c Merge branch 'modsplit-Oct31_2011' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/paulg/linux 2011-11-06 19:44:47 -08:00
mm_init.c mm: Map most files to use export.h instead of module.h 2011-10-31 09:20:12 -04:00
mmap.c mm: simplify find_vma_prev() 2012-01-10 16:30:44 -08:00
mmu_context.c mm: Map most files to use export.h instead of module.h 2011-10-31 09:20:12 -04:00
mmu_notifier.c mm: Map most files to use export.h instead of module.h 2011-10-31 09:20:12 -04:00
mmzone.c mm: delete various needless include <linux/module.h> 2011-10-31 09:20:11 -04:00
mprotect.c thp: mprotect: transparent huge page support 2011-01-13 17:32:44 -08:00
mremap.c mremap: enforce rmap src/dst vma ordering in case of vma_merge() succeeding in copy_vma() 2012-01-10 16:30:44 -08:00
msync.c
nobootmem.c Merge branch 'master' into x86/memblock 2011-11-28 09:46:22 -08:00
nommu.c xen: map foreign pages for shared rings by updating the PTEs directly 2011-11-16 12:13:08 -05:00
oom_kill.c tracepoint: add tracepoints for debugging oom_score_adj 2012-01-10 16:30:44 -08:00
page-writeback.c mm: try to distribute dirty pages fairly across zones 2012-01-10 16:30:43 -08:00
page_alloc.c mm: page_alloc: generalize order handling in __free_pages_bootmem() 2012-01-10 16:30:44 -08:00
page_cgroup.c mm/page_cgroup.c: quiet sparse noise 2011-11-02 16:07:00 -07:00
page_io.c block: kill off REQ_UNPLUG 2011-03-10 08:52:27 +01:00
page_isolation.c
pagewalk.c pagewalk: fix code comment for THP 2011-07-25 20:57:09 -07:00
percpu-km.c
percpu-vm.c percpu: fix chunk range calculation 2011-11-22 08:09:46 -08:00
percpu.c percpu: fix per_cpu_ptr_to_phys() handling of non-page-aligned addresses 2011-12-15 11:41:40 -08:00
pgtable-generic.c mm/pgtable-generic.c: fix CONFIG_SWAP=n build 2011-01-26 10:49:58 +10:00
prio_tree.c sanitize <linux/prefetch.h> usage 2011-05-20 12:50:29 -07:00
process_vm_access.c Cross Memory Attach 2011-10-31 17:30:44 -07:00
quicklist.c mm: delete various needless include <linux/module.h> 2011-10-31 09:20:11 -04:00
readahead.c mm: Map most files to use export.h instead of module.h 2011-10-31 09:20:12 -04:00
rmap.c mremap: enforce rmap src/dst vma ordering in case of vma_merge() succeeding in copy_vma() 2012-01-10 16:30:44 -08:00
shmem.c vfs: switch ->show_options() to struct dentry * 2012-01-06 23:19:54 -05:00
slab.c tracing/mm: Move include of trace/events/kmem.h out of header into slab.c 2012-01-09 14:19:33 -08:00
slob.c mm: Map most files to use export.h instead of module.h 2011-10-31 09:20:12 -04:00
slub.c slub: min order when debug_guardpage_minorder > 0 2012-01-10 16:30:43 -08:00
sparse-vmemmap.c mm: delete various needless include <linux/module.h> 2011-10-31 09:20:11 -04:00
sparse.c mm: Map most files to use export.h instead of module.h 2011-10-31 09:20:12 -04:00
swap.c mm: add free_hot_cold_page_list() helper 2012-01-10 16:30:41 -08:00
swap_state.c fs: move code out of buffer.c 2012-01-03 22:54:07 -05:00
swapfile.c mm: avoid livelock on !__GFP_FS allocations 2012-01-10 16:30:42 -08:00
thrash.c mm/thrash.c: quiet sparse noise 2011-10-31 17:30:50 -07:00
truncate.c mm: Map most files to use export.h instead of module.h 2011-10-31 09:20:12 -04:00
util.c mm: Map most files to use export.h instead of module.h 2011-10-31 09:20:12 -04:00
vmalloc.c Merge branch 'devel-stable' into for-linus 2012-01-05 13:24:33 +00:00
vmscan.c mm/vmscan.c: consider swap space when deciding whether to continue reclaim 2012-01-10 16:30:45 -08:00
vmstat.c mm/vmstat.c: cache align vm_stat 2011-10-31 17:30:51 -07:00