locking/qspinlock: Add comments

I figured we need to document the spin_is_locked() and
spin_unlock_wait() constraints somwehere.

Ideally 'someone' would rewrite Documentation/atomic_ops.txt and we
could find a place in there. But currently that document is stale to
the point of hardly being useful.

Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Boqun Feng <boqun.feng@gmail.com>
Cc: Davidlohr Bueso <dave@stgolabs.net>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Pan Xinhui <xinhui.pan@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Waiman Long <waiman.long@hpe.com>
Cc: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>

1 files changed, 57 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/kernel/locking/qspinlock.c b/kernel/locking/qspinlock.c
index ee7deb08d43d..2f9153b183c9 100644
--- a/kernel/locking/qspinlock.c
+++ b/kernel/locking/qspinlock.c
@@ -268,6 +268,63 @@ static __always_inline u32  __pv_wait_head_or_lock(struct qspinlock *lock,
 #endif
 
 /*
+ * Various notes on spin_is_locked() and spin_unlock_wait(), which are
+ * 'interesting' functions:
+ *
+ * PROBLEM: some architectures have an interesting issue with atomic ACQUIRE
+ * operations in that the ACQUIRE applies to the LOAD _not_ the STORE (ARM64,
+ * PPC). Also qspinlock has a similar issue per construction, the setting of
+ * the locked byte can be unordered acquiring the lock proper.
+ *
+ * This gets to be 'interesting' in the following cases, where the /should/s
+ * end up false because of this issue.
+ *
+ *
+ * CASE 1:
+ *
+ * So the spin_is_locked() correctness issue comes from something like:
+ *
+ *   CPU0				CPU1
+ *
+ *   global_lock();			local_lock(i)
+ *     spin_lock(&G)			  spin_lock(&L[i])
+ *     for (i)				  if (!spin_is_locked(&G)) {
+ *       spin_unlock_wait(&L[i]);	    smp_acquire__after_ctrl_dep();
+ *					    return;
+ *					  }
+ *					  // deal with fail
+ *
+ * Where it is important CPU1 sees G locked or CPU0 sees L[i] locked such
+ * that there is exclusion between the two critical sections.
+ *
+ * The load from spin_is_locked(&G) /should/ be constrained by the ACQUIRE from
+ * spin_lock(&L[i]), and similarly the load(s) from spin_unlock_wait(&L[i])
+ * /should/ be constrained by the ACQUIRE from spin_lock(&G).
+ *
+ * Similarly, later stuff is constrained by the ACQUIRE from CTRL+RMB.
+ *
+ *
+ * CASE 2:
+ *
+ * For spin_unlock_wait() there is a second correctness issue, namely:
+ *
+ *   CPU0				CPU1
+ *
+ *   flag = set;
+ *   smp_mb();				spin_lock(&l)
+ *   spin_unlock_wait(&l);		if (!flag)
+ *					  // add to lockless list
+ *					spin_unlock(&l);
+ *   // iterate lockless list
+ *
+ * Which wants to ensure that CPU1 will stop adding bits to the list and CPU0
+ * will observe the last entry on the list (if spin_unlock_wait() had ACQUIRE
+ * semantics etc..)
+ *
+ * Where flag /should/ be ordered against the locked store of l.
+ */
+
+/*
  * queued_spin_lock_slowpath() can (load-)ACQUIRE the lock before
  * issuing an _unordered_ store to set _Q_LOCKED_VAL.
  *