docs: move the kref doc into the core-api book

This document covers core kernel objects. So, add it into the core-api
book.

Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab+huawei@kernel.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/f385af13b4a6d3ff8c89beedd4506900e79ca72e.1588345503.git.mchehab+huawei@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>

3 files changed, 325 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/core-api/index.rst b/Documentation/core-api/index.rst
index 0caaed576225..15ab86112627 100644
--- a/Documentation/core-api/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/core-api/index.rst
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@ Library functionality that is used throughout the kernel.
    :maxdepth: 1
 
    kobject
+   kref
    assoc_array
    xarray
    idr
diff --git a/Documentation/core-api/kobject.rst b/Documentation/core-api/kobject.rst
index c3ac2963283b..e93dc8cf52dd 100644
--- a/Documentation/core-api/kobject.rst
+++ b/Documentation/core-api/kobject.rst
@@ -210,7 +210,7 @@ statically and will warn the developer of this improper usage.
 If all that you want to use a kobject for is to provide a reference counter
 for your structure, please use the struct kref instead; a kobject would be
 overkill.  For more information on how to use struct kref, please see the
-file Documentation/kref.txt in the Linux kernel source tree.
+file Documentation/core-api/kref.rst in the Linux kernel source tree.
 
 
 Creating "simple" kobjects
diff --git a/Documentation/core-api/kref.rst b/Documentation/core-api/kref.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..c61eea6f1bf2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/core-api/kref.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,323 @@
+===================================================
+Adding reference counters (krefs) to kernel objects
+===================================================
+
+:Author: Corey Minyard <minyard@acm.org>
+:Author: Thomas Hellstrom <thellstrom@vmware.com>
+
+A lot of this was lifted from Greg Kroah-Hartman's 2004 OLS paper and
+presentation on krefs, which can be found at:
+
+  - http://www.kroah.com/linux/talks/ols_2004_kref_paper/Reprint-Kroah-Hartman-OLS2004.pdf
+  - http://www.kroah.com/linux/talks/ols_2004_kref_talk/
+
+Introduction
+============
+
+krefs allow you to add reference counters to your objects.  If you
+have objects that are used in multiple places and passed around, and
+you don't have refcounts, your code is almost certainly broken.  If
+you want refcounts, krefs are the way to go.
+
+To use a kref, add one to your data structures like::
+
+    struct my_data
+    {
+	.
+	.
+	struct kref refcount;
+	.
+	.
+    };
+
+The kref can occur anywhere within the data structure.
+
+Initialization
+==============
+
+You must initialize the kref after you allocate it.  To do this, call
+kref_init as so::
+
+     struct my_data *data;
+
+     data = kmalloc(sizeof(*data), GFP_KERNEL);
+     if (!data)
+            return -ENOMEM;
+     kref_init(&data->refcount);
+
+This sets the refcount in the kref to 1.
+
+Kref rules
+==========
+
+Once you have an initialized kref, you must follow the following
+rules:
+
+1) If you make a non-temporary copy of a pointer, especially if
+   it can be passed to another thread of execution, you must
+   increment the refcount with kref_get() before passing it off::
+
+       kref_get(&data->refcount);
+
+   If you already have a valid pointer to a kref-ed structure (the
+   refcount cannot go to zero) you may do this without a lock.
+
+2) When you are done with a pointer, you must call kref_put()::
+
+       kref_put(&data->refcount, data_release);
+
+   If this is the last reference to the pointer, the release
+   routine will be called.  If the code never tries to get
+   a valid pointer to a kref-ed structure without already
+   holding a valid pointer, it is safe to do this without
+   a lock.
+
+3) If the code attempts to gain a reference to a kref-ed structure
+   without already holding a valid pointer, it must serialize access
+   where a kref_put() cannot occur during the kref_get(), and the
+   structure must remain valid during the kref_get().
+
+For example, if you allocate some data and then pass it to another
+thread to process::
+
+    void data_release(struct kref *ref)
+    {
+	struct my_data *data = container_of(ref, struct my_data, refcount);
+	kfree(data);
+    }
+
+    void more_data_handling(void *cb_data)
+    {
+	struct my_data *data = cb_data;
+	.
+	. do stuff with data here
+	.
+	kref_put(&data->refcount, data_release);
+    }
+
+    int my_data_handler(void)
+    {
+	int rv = 0;
+	struct my_data *data;
+	struct task_struct *task;
+	data = kmalloc(sizeof(*data), GFP_KERNEL);
+	if (!data)
+		return -ENOMEM;
+	kref_init(&data->refcount);
+
+	kref_get(&data->refcount);
+	task = kthread_run(more_data_handling, data, "more_data_handling");
+	if (task == ERR_PTR(-ENOMEM)) {
+		rv = -ENOMEM;
+	        kref_put(&data->refcount, data_release);
+		goto out;
+	}
+
+	.
+	. do stuff with data here
+	.
+    out:
+	kref_put(&data->refcount, data_release);
+	return rv;
+    }
+
+This way, it doesn't matter what order the two threads handle the
+data, the kref_put() handles knowing when the data is not referenced
+any more and releasing it.  The kref_get() does not require a lock,
+since we already have a valid pointer that we own a refcount for.  The
+put needs no lock because nothing tries to get the data without
+already holding a pointer.
+
+In the above example, kref_put() will be called 2 times in both success
+and error paths. This is necessary because the reference count got
+incremented 2 times by kref_init() and kref_get().
+
+Note that the "before" in rule 1 is very important.  You should never
+do something like::
+
+	task = kthread_run(more_data_handling, data, "more_data_handling");
+	if (task == ERR_PTR(-ENOMEM)) {
+		rv = -ENOMEM;
+		goto out;
+	} else
+		/* BAD BAD BAD - get is after the handoff */
+		kref_get(&data->refcount);
+
+Don't assume you know what you are doing and use the above construct.
+First of all, you may not know what you are doing.  Second, you may
+know what you are doing (there are some situations where locking is
+involved where the above may be legal) but someone else who doesn't
+know what they are doing may change the code or copy the code.  It's
+bad style.  Don't do it.
+
+There are some situations where you can optimize the gets and puts.
+For instance, if you are done with an object and enqueuing it for
+something else or passing it off to something else, there is no reason
+to do a get then a put::
+
+	/* Silly extra get and put */
+	kref_get(&obj->ref);
+	enqueue(obj);
+	kref_put(&obj->ref, obj_cleanup);
+
+Just do the enqueue.  A comment about this is always welcome::
+
+	enqueue(obj);
+	/* We are done with obj, so we pass our refcount off
+	   to the queue.  DON'T TOUCH obj AFTER HERE! */
+
+The last rule (rule 3) is the nastiest one to handle.  Say, for
+instance, you have a list of items that are each kref-ed, and you wish
+to get the first one.  You can't just pull the first item off the list
+and kref_get() it.  That violates rule 3 because you are not already
+holding a valid pointer.  You must add a mutex (or some other lock).
+For instance::
+
+	static DEFINE_MUTEX(mutex);
+	static LIST_HEAD(q);
+	struct my_data
+	{
+		struct kref      refcount;
+		struct list_head link;
+	};
+
+	static struct my_data *get_entry()
+	{
+		struct my_data *entry = NULL;
+		mutex_lock(&mutex);
+		if (!list_empty(&q)) {
+			entry = container_of(q.next, struct my_data, link);
+			kref_get(&entry->refcount);
+		}
+		mutex_unlock(&mutex);
+		return entry;
+	}
+
+	static void release_entry(struct kref *ref)
+	{
+		struct my_data *entry = container_of(ref, struct my_data, refcount);
+
+		list_del(&entry->link);
+		kfree(entry);
+	}
+
+	static void put_entry(struct my_data *entry)
+	{
+		mutex_lock(&mutex);
+		kref_put(&entry->refcount, release_entry);
+		mutex_unlock(&mutex);
+	}
+
+The kref_put() return value is useful if you do not want to hold the
+lock during the whole release operation.  Say you didn't want to call
+kfree() with the lock held in the example above (since it is kind of
+pointless to do so).  You could use kref_put() as follows::
+
+	static void release_entry(struct kref *ref)
+	{
+		/* All work is done after the return from kref_put(). */
+	}
+
+	static void put_entry(struct my_data *entry)
+	{
+		mutex_lock(&mutex);
+		if (kref_put(&entry->refcount, release_entry)) {
+			list_del(&entry->link);
+			mutex_unlock(&mutex);
+			kfree(entry);
+		} else
+			mutex_unlock(&mutex);
+	}
+
+This is really more useful if you have to call other routines as part
+of the free operations that could take a long time or might claim the
+same lock.  Note that doing everything in the release routine is still
+preferred as it is a little neater.
+
+The above example could also be optimized using kref_get_unless_zero() in
+the following way::
+
+	static struct my_data *get_entry()
+	{
+		struct my_data *entry = NULL;
+		mutex_lock(&mutex);
+		if (!list_empty(&q)) {
+			entry = container_of(q.next, struct my_data, link);
+			if (!kref_get_unless_zero(&entry->refcount))
+				entry = NULL;
+		}
+		mutex_unlock(&mutex);
+		return entry;
+	}
+
+	static void release_entry(struct kref *ref)
+	{
+		struct my_data *entry = container_of(ref, struct my_data, refcount);
+
+		mutex_lock(&mutex);
+		list_del(&entry->link);
+		mutex_unlock(&mutex);
+		kfree(entry);
+	}
+
+	static void put_entry(struct my_data *entry)
+	{
+		kref_put(&entry->refcount, release_entry);
+	}
+
+Which is useful to remove the mutex lock around kref_put() in put_entry(), but
+it's important that kref_get_unless_zero is enclosed in the same critical
+section that finds the entry in the lookup table,
+otherwise kref_get_unless_zero may reference already freed memory.
+Note that it is illegal to use kref_get_unless_zero without checking its
+return value. If you are sure (by already having a valid pointer) that
+kref_get_unless_zero() will return true, then use kref_get() instead.
+
+Krefs and RCU
+=============
+
+The function kref_get_unless_zero also makes it possible to use rcu
+locking for lookups in the above example::
+
+	struct my_data
+	{
+		struct rcu_head rhead;
+		.
+		struct kref refcount;
+		.
+		.
+	};
+
+	static struct my_data *get_entry_rcu()
+	{
+		struct my_data *entry = NULL;
+		rcu_read_lock();
+		if (!list_empty(&q)) {
+			entry = container_of(q.next, struct my_data, link);
+			if (!kref_get_unless_zero(&entry->refcount))
+				entry = NULL;
+		}
+		rcu_read_unlock();
+		return entry;
+	}
+
+	static void release_entry_rcu(struct kref *ref)
+	{
+		struct my_data *entry = container_of(ref, struct my_data, refcount);
+
+		mutex_lock(&mutex);
+		list_del_rcu(&entry->link);
+		mutex_unlock(&mutex);
+		kfree_rcu(entry, rhead);
+	}
+
+	static void put_entry(struct my_data *entry)
+	{
+		kref_put(&entry->refcount, release_entry_rcu);
+	}
+
+But note that the struct kref member needs to remain in valid memory for a
+rcu grace period after release_entry_rcu was called. That can be accomplished
+by using kfree_rcu(entry, rhead) as done above, or by calling synchronize_rcu()
+before using kfree, but note that synchronize_rcu() may sleep for a
+substantial amount of time.