153 lines
6.0 KiB
ReStructuredText
153 lines
6.0 KiB
ReStructuredText
=======================
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Generic Mutex Subsystem
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=======================
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started by Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
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updated by Davidlohr Bueso <davidlohr@hp.com>
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What are mutexes?
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-----------------
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In the Linux kernel, mutexes refer to a particular locking primitive
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that enforces serialization on shared memory systems, and not only to
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the generic term referring to 'mutual exclusion' found in academia
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or similar theoretical text books. Mutexes are sleeping locks which
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behave similarly to binary semaphores, and were introduced in 2006[1]
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as an alternative to these. This new data structure provided a number
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of advantages, including simpler interfaces, and at that time smaller
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code (see Disadvantages).
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[1] http://lwn.net/Articles/164802/
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Implementation
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--------------
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Mutexes are represented by 'struct mutex', defined in include/linux/mutex.h
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and implemented in kernel/locking/mutex.c. These locks use an atomic variable
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(->owner) to keep track of the lock state during its lifetime. Field owner
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actually contains `struct task_struct *` to the current lock owner and it is
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therefore NULL if not currently owned. Since task_struct pointers are aligned
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at at least L1_CACHE_BYTES, low bits (3) are used to store extra state (e.g.,
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if waiter list is non-empty). In its most basic form it also includes a
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wait-queue and a spinlock that serializes access to it. Furthermore,
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CONFIG_MUTEX_SPIN_ON_OWNER=y systems use a spinner MCS lock (->osq), described
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below in (ii).
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When acquiring a mutex, there are three possible paths that can be
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taken, depending on the state of the lock:
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(i) fastpath: tries to atomically acquire the lock by cmpxchg()ing the owner with
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the current task. This only works in the uncontended case (cmpxchg() checks
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against 0UL, so all 3 state bits above have to be 0). If the lock is
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contended it goes to the next possible path.
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(ii) midpath: aka optimistic spinning, tries to spin for acquisition
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while the lock owner is running and there are no other tasks ready
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to run that have higher priority (need_resched). The rationale is
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that if the lock owner is running, it is likely to release the lock
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soon. The mutex spinners are queued up using MCS lock so that only
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one spinner can compete for the mutex.
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The MCS lock (proposed by Mellor-Crummey and Scott) is a simple spinlock
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with the desirable properties of being fair and with each cpu trying
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to acquire the lock spinning on a local variable. It avoids expensive
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cacheline bouncing that common test-and-set spinlock implementations
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incur. An MCS-like lock is specially tailored for optimistic spinning
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for sleeping lock implementation. An important feature of the customized
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MCS lock is that it has the extra property that spinners are able to exit
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the MCS spinlock queue when they need to reschedule. This further helps
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avoid situations where MCS spinners that need to reschedule would continue
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waiting to spin on mutex owner, only to go directly to slowpath upon
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obtaining the MCS lock.
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(iii) slowpath: last resort, if the lock is still unable to be acquired,
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the task is added to the wait-queue and sleeps until woken up by the
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unlock path. Under normal circumstances it blocks as TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE.
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While formally kernel mutexes are sleepable locks, it is path (ii) that
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makes them more practically a hybrid type. By simply not interrupting a
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task and busy-waiting for a few cycles instead of immediately sleeping,
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the performance of this lock has been seen to significantly improve a
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number of workloads. Note that this technique is also used for rw-semaphores.
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Semantics
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---------
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The mutex subsystem checks and enforces the following rules:
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- Only one task can hold the mutex at a time.
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- Only the owner can unlock the mutex.
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- Multiple unlocks are not permitted.
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- Recursive locking/unlocking is not permitted.
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- A mutex must only be initialized via the API (see below).
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- A task may not exit with a mutex held.
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- Memory areas where held locks reside must not be freed.
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- Held mutexes must not be reinitialized.
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- Mutexes may not be used in hardware or software interrupt
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contexts such as tasklets and timers.
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These semantics are fully enforced when CONFIG DEBUG_MUTEXES is enabled.
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In addition, the mutex debugging code also implements a number of other
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features that make lock debugging easier and faster:
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- Uses symbolic names of mutexes, whenever they are printed
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in debug output.
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- Point-of-acquire tracking, symbolic lookup of function names,
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list of all locks held in the system, printout of them.
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- Owner tracking.
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- Detects self-recursing locks and prints out all relevant info.
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- Detects multi-task circular deadlocks and prints out all affected
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locks and tasks (and only those tasks).
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Interfaces
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----------
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Statically define the mutex::
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DEFINE_MUTEX(name);
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Dynamically initialize the mutex::
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mutex_init(mutex);
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Acquire the mutex, uninterruptible::
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void mutex_lock(struct mutex *lock);
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void mutex_lock_nested(struct mutex *lock, unsigned int subclass);
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int mutex_trylock(struct mutex *lock);
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Acquire the mutex, interruptible::
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int mutex_lock_interruptible_nested(struct mutex *lock,
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unsigned int subclass);
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int mutex_lock_interruptible(struct mutex *lock);
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Acquire the mutex, interruptible, if dec to 0::
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int atomic_dec_and_mutex_lock(atomic_t *cnt, struct mutex *lock);
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Unlock the mutex::
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void mutex_unlock(struct mutex *lock);
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Test if the mutex is taken::
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int mutex_is_locked(struct mutex *lock);
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Disadvantages
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-------------
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Unlike its original design and purpose, 'struct mutex' is among the largest
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locks in the kernel. E.g: on x86-64 it is 32 bytes, where 'struct semaphore'
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is 24 bytes and rw_semaphore is 40 bytes. Larger structure sizes mean more CPU
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cache and memory footprint.
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When to use mutexes
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-------------------
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Unless the strict semantics of mutexes are unsuitable and/or the critical
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region prevents the lock from being shared, always prefer them to any other
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locking primitive.
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