From e9f8a790bf682bb4a2f79d0d905b34d55bceb71d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Paul E. McKenney" Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2022 08:57:56 -0700 Subject: slab: Explain why SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU reference before locking It is not obvious to the casual user why it is absolutely necessary to acquire a reference to a SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU structure before acquiring a lock in that structure. Therefore, add a comment explaining this point. [ paulmck: Apply Vlastimil Babka feedback. ] Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney Cc: Christoph Lameter Cc: Pekka Enberg Cc: David Rientjes Cc: Joonsoo Kim Cc: Andrew Morton Cc: Roman Gushchin Cc: Hyeonggon Yoo <42.hyeyoo@gmail.com> Cc: Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka --- include/linux/slab.h | 11 +++++++++++ 1 file changed, 11 insertions(+) (limited to 'include/linux/slab.h') diff --git a/include/linux/slab.h b/include/linux/slab.h index 90877fcde70b..487418c7ea8c 100644 --- a/include/linux/slab.h +++ b/include/linux/slab.h @@ -76,6 +76,17 @@ * rcu_read_lock before reading the address, then rcu_read_unlock after * taking the spinlock within the structure expected at that address. * + * Note that it is not possible to acquire a lock within a structure + * allocated with SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU without first acquiring a reference + * as described above. The reason is that SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU pages + * are not zeroed before being given to the slab, which means that any + * locks must be initialized after each and every kmem_struct_alloc(). + * Alternatively, make the ctor passed to kmem_cache_create() initialize + * the locks at page-allocation time, as is done in __i915_request_ctor(), + * sighand_ctor(), and anon_vma_ctor(). Such a ctor permits readers + * to safely acquire those ctor-initialized locks under rcu_read_lock() + * protection. + * * Note that SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU was originally named SLAB_DESTROY_BY_RCU. */ /* Defer freeing slabs to RCU */ -- cgit v1.2.3