Revert docs from "rcu: Restore barrier() to rcu_read_lock() and rcu_read_unlock()"
This reverts docs from commit d6b9cd7dc8e041ee83cb1362fce59a3cdb1f2709. Signed-off-by: Joel Fernandes (Google) <joel@joelfernandes.org> [ paulmck: Added Joel's SoB per Stephen Rothwell feedback. ] [ paulmck: Joel approved via private email. ] Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@kernel.org>
This commit is contained in:
parent
54ecb8f702
commit
97df75cde5
|
@ -2129,8 +2129,6 @@ Some of the relevant points of interest are as follows:
|
|||
<li> <a href="#Hotplug CPU">Hotplug CPU</a>.
|
||||
<li> <a href="#Scheduler and RCU">Scheduler and RCU</a>.
|
||||
<li> <a href="#Tracing and RCU">Tracing and RCU</a>.
|
||||
<li> <a href="#Accesses to User Memory and RCU">
|
||||
Accesses to User Memory and RCU</a>.
|
||||
<li> <a href="#Energy Efficiency">Energy Efficiency</a>.
|
||||
<li> <a href="#Scheduling-Clock Interrupts and RCU">
|
||||
Scheduling-Clock Interrupts and RCU</a>.
|
||||
|
@ -2523,75 +2521,6 @@ cannot be used.
|
|||
The tracing folks both located the requirement and provided the
|
||||
needed fix, so this surprise requirement was relatively painless.
|
||||
|
||||
<h3><a name="Accesses to User Memory and RCU">
|
||||
Accesses to User Memory and RCU</a></h3>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
The kernel needs to access user-space memory, for example, to access
|
||||
data referenced by system-call parameters.
|
||||
The <tt>get_user()</tt> macro does this job.
|
||||
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
However, user-space memory might well be paged out, which means
|
||||
that <tt>get_user()</tt> might well page-fault and thus block while
|
||||
waiting for the resulting I/O to complete.
|
||||
It would be a very bad thing for the compiler to reorder
|
||||
a <tt>get_user()</tt> invocation into an RCU read-side critical
|
||||
section.
|
||||
For example, suppose that the source code looked like this:
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<pre>
|
||||
1 rcu_read_lock();
|
||||
2 p = rcu_dereference(gp);
|
||||
3 v = p->value;
|
||||
4 rcu_read_unlock();
|
||||
5 get_user(user_v, user_p);
|
||||
6 do_something_with(v, user_v);
|
||||
</pre>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
The compiler must not be permitted to transform this source code into
|
||||
the following:
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<pre>
|
||||
1 rcu_read_lock();
|
||||
2 p = rcu_dereference(gp);
|
||||
3 get_user(user_v, user_p); // BUG: POSSIBLE PAGE FAULT!!!
|
||||
4 v = p->value;
|
||||
5 rcu_read_unlock();
|
||||
6 do_something_with(v, user_v);
|
||||
</pre>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
If the compiler did make this transformation in a
|
||||
<tt>CONFIG_PREEMPT=n</tt> kernel build, and if <tt>get_user()</tt> did
|
||||
page fault, the result would be a quiescent state in the middle
|
||||
of an RCU read-side critical section.
|
||||
This misplaced quiescent state could result in line 4 being
|
||||
a use-after-free access, which could be bad for your kernel's
|
||||
actuarial statistics.
|
||||
Similar examples can be constructed with the call to <tt>get_user()</tt>
|
||||
preceding the <tt>rcu_read_lock()</tt>.
|
||||
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Unfortunately, <tt>get_user()</tt> doesn't have any particular
|
||||
ordering properties, and in some architectures the underlying <tt>asm</tt>
|
||||
isn't even marked <tt>volatile</tt>.
|
||||
And even if it was marked <tt>volatile</tt>, the above access to
|
||||
<tt>p->value</tt> is not volatile, so the compiler would not have any
|
||||
reason to keep those two accesses in order.
|
||||
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
Therefore, the Linux-kernel definitions of <tt>rcu_read_lock()</tt>
|
||||
and <tt>rcu_read_unlock()</tt> must act as compiler barriers,
|
||||
at least for outermost instances of <tt>rcu_read_lock()</tt> and
|
||||
<tt>rcu_read_unlock()</tt> within a nested set of RCU read-side critical
|
||||
sections.
|
||||
|
||||
<h3><a name="Energy Efficiency">Energy Efficiency</a></h3>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
|
|
Loading…
Reference in New Issue