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authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2020-10-12 13:06:20 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2020-10-12 13:06:20 -0700
commited016af52ee3035b4799ebd7d53f9ae59d5782c4 (patch)
tree626b659a6e2e44f3c6a65e1053eec6e108e61332 /tools/memory-model
parentedaa5ddf3833669a25654d42c0fb653dfdd906df (diff)
parent2116d708b0580c0048fc80b82ec4b53f4ddaa166 (diff)
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Merge tag 'locking-core-2020-10-12' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip
Pull locking updates from Ingo Molnar: "These are the locking updates for v5.10: - Add deadlock detection for recursive read-locks. The rationale is outlined in commit 224ec489d3cd ("lockdep/ Documention: Recursive read lock detection reasoning") The main deadlock pattern we want to detect is: TASK A: TASK B: read_lock(X); write_lock(X); read_lock_2(X); - Add "latch sequence counters" (seqcount_latch_t): A sequence counter variant where the counter even/odd value is used to switch between two copies of protected data. This allows the read path, typically NMIs, to safely interrupt the write side critical section. We utilize this new variant for sched-clock, and to make x86 TSC handling safer. - Other seqlock cleanups, fixes and enhancements - KCSAN updates - LKMM updates - Misc updates, cleanups and fixes" * tag 'locking-core-2020-10-12' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip: (67 commits) lockdep: Revert "lockdep: Use raw_cpu_*() for per-cpu variables" lockdep: Fix lockdep recursion lockdep: Fix usage_traceoverflow locking/atomics: Check atomic-arch-fallback.h too locking/seqlock: Tweak DEFINE_SEQLOCK() kernel doc lockdep: Optimize the memory usage of circular queue seqlock: Unbreak lockdep seqlock: PREEMPT_RT: Do not starve seqlock_t writers seqlock: seqcount_LOCKNAME_t: Introduce PREEMPT_RT support seqlock: seqcount_t: Implement all read APIs as statement expressions seqlock: Use unique prefix for seqcount_t property accessors seqlock: seqcount_LOCKNAME_t: Standardize naming convention seqlock: seqcount latch APIs: Only allow seqcount_latch_t rbtree_latch: Use seqcount_latch_t x86/tsc: Use seqcount_latch_t timekeeping: Use seqcount_latch_t time/sched_clock: Use seqcount_latch_t seqlock: Introduce seqcount_latch_t mm/swap: Do not abuse the seqcount_t latching API time/sched_clock: Use raw_read_seqcount_latch() during suspend ...
Diffstat (limited to 'tools/memory-model')
-rw-r--r--tools/memory-model/Documentation/cheatsheet.txt33
-rw-r--r--tools/memory-model/Documentation/litmus-tests.txt1074
-rw-r--r--tools/memory-model/Documentation/recipes.txt4
-rw-r--r--tools/memory-model/Documentation/references.txt2
-rw-r--r--tools/memory-model/Documentation/simple.txt271
-rw-r--r--tools/memory-model/README160
6 files changed, 1410 insertions, 134 deletions
diff --git a/tools/memory-model/Documentation/cheatsheet.txt b/tools/memory-model/Documentation/cheatsheet.txt
index 33ba98d72b16..99d00870b160 100644
--- a/tools/memory-model/Documentation/cheatsheet.txt
+++ b/tools/memory-model/Documentation/cheatsheet.txt
@@ -3,9 +3,9 @@
C Self R W RMW Self R W DR DW RMW SV
-- ---- - - --- ---- - - -- -- --- --
-Store, e.g., WRITE_ONCE() Y Y
-Load, e.g., READ_ONCE() Y Y Y Y
-Unsuccessful RMW operation Y Y Y Y
+Relaxed store Y Y
+Relaxed load Y Y Y Y
+Relaxed RMW operation Y Y Y Y
rcu_dereference() Y Y Y Y
Successful *_acquire() R Y Y Y Y Y Y
Successful *_release() C Y Y Y W Y
@@ -17,14 +17,19 @@ smp_mb__before_atomic() CP Y Y Y a a a a Y
smp_mb__after_atomic() CP a a Y Y Y Y Y Y
-Key: C: Ordering is cumulative
- P: Ordering propagates
- R: Read, for example, READ_ONCE(), or read portion of RMW
- W: Write, for example, WRITE_ONCE(), or write portion of RMW
- Y: Provides ordering
- a: Provides ordering given intervening RMW atomic operation
- DR: Dependent read (address dependency)
- DW: Dependent write (address, data, or control dependency)
- RMW: Atomic read-modify-write operation
- SELF: Orders self, as opposed to accesses before and/or after
- SV: Orders later accesses to the same variable
+Key: Relaxed: A relaxed operation is either READ_ONCE(), WRITE_ONCE(),
+ a *_relaxed() RMW operation, an unsuccessful RMW
+ operation, a non-value-returning RMW operation such
+ as atomic_inc(), or one of the atomic*_read() and
+ atomic*_set() family of operations.
+ C: Ordering is cumulative
+ P: Ordering propagates
+ R: Read, for example, READ_ONCE(), or read portion of RMW
+ W: Write, for example, WRITE_ONCE(), or write portion of RMW
+ Y: Provides ordering
+ a: Provides ordering given intervening RMW atomic operation
+ DR: Dependent read (address dependency)
+ DW: Dependent write (address, data, or control dependency)
+ RMW: Atomic read-modify-write operation
+ SELF: Orders self, as opposed to accesses before and/or after
+ SV: Orders later accesses to the same variable
diff --git a/tools/memory-model/Documentation/litmus-tests.txt b/tools/memory-model/Documentation/litmus-tests.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..2f840dcd15cf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/memory-model/Documentation/litmus-tests.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,1074 @@
+Linux-Kernel Memory Model Litmus Tests
+======================================
+
+This file describes the LKMM litmus-test format by example, describes
+some tricks and traps, and finally outlines LKMM's limitations. Earlier
+versions of this material appeared in a number of LWN articles, including:
+
+https://lwn.net/Articles/720550/
+ A formal kernel memory-ordering model (part 2)
+https://lwn.net/Articles/608550/
+ Axiomatic validation of memory barriers and atomic instructions
+https://lwn.net/Articles/470681/
+ Validating Memory Barriers and Atomic Instructions
+
+This document presents information in decreasing order of applicability,
+so that, where possible, the information that has proven more commonly
+useful is shown near the beginning.
+
+For information on installing LKMM, including the underlying "herd7"
+tool, please see tools/memory-model/README.
+
+
+Copy-Pasta
+==========
+
+As with other software, it is often better (if less macho) to adapt an
+existing litmus test than it is to create one from scratch. A number
+of litmus tests may be found in the kernel source tree:
+
+ tools/memory-model/litmus-tests/
+ Documentation/litmus-tests/
+
+Several thousand more example litmus tests are available on github
+and kernel.org:
+
+ https://github.com/paulmckrcu/litmus
+ https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/paulmck/perfbook.git/tree/CodeSamples/formal/herd
+ https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/paulmck/perfbook.git/tree/CodeSamples/formal/litmus
+
+The -l and -L arguments to "git grep" can be quite helpful in identifying
+existing litmus tests that are similar to the one you need. But even if
+you start with an existing litmus test, it is still helpful to have a
+good understanding of the litmus-test format.
+
+
+Examples and Format
+===================
+
+This section describes the overall format of litmus tests, starting
+with a small example of the message-passing pattern and moving on to
+more complex examples that illustrate explicit initialization and LKMM's
+minimalistic set of flow-control statements.
+
+
+Message-Passing Example
+-----------------------
+
+This section gives an overview of the format of a litmus test using an
+example based on the common message-passing use case. This use case
+appears often in the Linux kernel. For example, a flag (modeled by "y"
+below) indicates that a buffer (modeled by "x" below) is now completely
+filled in and ready for use. It would be very bad if the consumer saw the
+flag set, but, due to memory misordering, saw old values in the buffer.
+
+This example asks whether smp_store_release() and smp_load_acquire()
+suffices to avoid this bad outcome:
+
+ 1 C MP+pooncerelease+poacquireonce
+ 2
+ 3 {}
+ 4
+ 5 P0(int *x, int *y)
+ 6 {
+ 7 WRITE_ONCE(*x, 1);
+ 8 smp_store_release(y, 1);
+ 9 }
+10
+11 P1(int *x, int *y)
+12 {
+13 int r0;
+14 int r1;
+15
+16 r0 = smp_load_acquire(y);
+17 r1 = READ_ONCE(*x);
+18 }
+19
+20 exists (1:r0=1 /\ 1:r1=0)
+
+Line 1 starts with "C", which identifies this file as being in the
+LKMM C-language format (which, as we will see, is a small fragment
+of the full C language). The remainder of line 1 is the name of
+the test, which by convention is the filename with the ".litmus"
+suffix stripped. In this case, the actual test may be found in
+tools/memory-model/litmus-tests/MP+pooncerelease+poacquireonce.litmus
+in the Linux-kernel source tree.
+
+Mechanically generated litmus tests will often have an optional
+double-quoted comment string on the second line. Such strings are ignored
+when running the test. Yes, you can add your own comments to litmus
+tests, but this is a bit involved due to the use of multiple parsers.
+For now, you can use C-language comments in the C code, and these comments
+may be in either the "/* */" or the "//" style. A later section will
+cover the full litmus-test commenting story.
+
+Line 3 is the initialization section. Because the default initialization
+to zero suffices for this test, the "{}" syntax is used, which mean the
+initialization section is empty. Litmus tests requiring non-default
+initialization must have non-empty initialization sections, as in the
+example that will be presented later in this document.
+
+Lines 5-9 show the first process and lines 11-18 the second process. Each
+process corresponds to a Linux-kernel task (or kthread, workqueue, thread,
+and so on; LKMM discussions often use these terms interchangeably).
+The name of the first process is "P0" and that of the second "P1".
+You can name your processes anything you like as long as the names consist
+of a single "P" followed by a number, and as long as the numbers are
+consecutive starting with zero. This can actually be quite helpful,
+for example, a .litmus file matching "^P1(" but not matching "^P2("
+must contain a two-process litmus test.
+
+The argument list for each function are pointers to the global variables
+used by that function. Unlike normal C-language function parameters, the
+names are significant. The fact that both P0() and P1() have a formal
+parameter named "x" means that these two processes are working with the
+same global variable, also named "x". So the "int *x, int *y" on P0()
+and P1() mean that both processes are working with two shared global
+variables, "x" and "y". Global variables are always passed to processes
+by reference, hence "P0(int *x, int *y)", but *never* "P0(int x, int y)".
+
+P0() has no local variables, but P1() has two of them named "r0" and "r1".
+These names may be freely chosen, but for historical reasons stemming from
+other litmus-test formats, it is conventional to use names consisting of
+"r" followed by a number as shown here. A common bug in litmus tests
+is forgetting to add a global variable to a process's parameter list.
+This will sometimes result in an error message, but can also cause the
+intended global to instead be silently treated as an undeclared local
+variable.
+
+Each process's code is similar to Linux-kernel C, as can be seen on lines
+7-8 and 13-17. This code may use many of the Linux kernel's atomic
+operations, some of its exclusive-lock functions, and some of its RCU
+and SRCU functions. An approximate list of the currently supported
+functions may be found in the linux-kernel.def file.
+
+The P0() process does "WRITE_ONCE(*x, 1)" on line 7. Because "x" is a
+pointer in P0()'s parameter list, this does an unordered store to global
+variable "x". Line 8 does "smp_store_release(y, 1)", and because "y"
+is also in P0()'s parameter list, this does a release store to global
+variable "y".
+
+The P1() process declares two local variables on lines 13 and 14.
+Line 16 does "r0 = smp_load_acquire(y)" which does an acquire load
+from global variable "y" into local variable "r0". Line 17 does a
+"r1 = READ_ONCE(*x)", which does an unordered load from "*x" into local
+variable "r1". Both "x" and "y" are in P1()'s parameter list, so both
+reference the same global variables that are used by P0().
+
+Line 20 is the "exists" assertion expression to evaluate the final state.
+This final state is evaluated after the dust has settled: both processes
+have completed and all of their memory references and memory barriers
+have propagated to all parts of the system. The references to the local
+variables "r0" and "r1" in line 24 must be prefixed with "1:" to specify
+which process they are local to.
+
+Note that the assertion expression is written in the litmus-test
+language rather than in C. For example, single "=" is an equality
+operator rather than an assignment. The "/\" character combination means
+"and". Similarly, "\/" stands for "or". Both of these are ASCII-art
+representations of the corresponding mathematical symbols. Finally,
+"~" stands for "logical not", which is "!" in C, and not to be confused
+with the C-language "~" operator which instead stands for "bitwise not".
+Parentheses may be used to override precedence.
+
+The "exists" assertion on line 20 is satisfied if the consumer sees the
+flag ("y") set but the buffer ("x") as not yet filled in, that is, if P1()
+loaded a value from "x" that was equal to 1 but loaded a value from "y"
+that was still equal to zero.
+
+This example can be checked by running the following command, which
+absolutely must be run from the tools/memory-model directory and from
+this directory only:
+
+herd7 -conf linux-kernel.cfg litmus-tests/MP+pooncerelease+poacquireonce.litmus
+
+The output is the result of something similar to a full state-space
+search, and is as follows:
+
+ 1 Test MP+pooncerelease+poacquireonce Allowed
+ 2 States 3
+ 3 1:r0=0; 1:r1=0;
+ 4 1:r0=0; 1:r1=1;
+ 5 1:r0=1; 1:r1=1;
+ 6 No
+ 7 Witnesses
+ 8 Positive: 0 Negative: 3
+ 9 Condition exists (1:r0=1 /\ 1:r1=0)
+10 Observation MP+pooncerelease+poacquireonce Never 0 3
+11 Time MP+pooncerelease+poacquireonce 0.00
+12 Hash=579aaa14d8c35a39429b02e698241d09
+
+The most pertinent line is line 10, which contains "Never 0 3", which
+indicates that the bad result flagged by the "exists" clause never
+happens. This line might instead say "Sometimes" to indicate that the
+bad result happened in some but not all executions, or it might say
+"Always" to indicate that the bad result happened in all executions.
+(The herd7 tool doesn't judge, so it is only an LKMM convention that the
+"exists" clause indicates a bad result. To see this, invert the "exists"
+clause's condition and run the test.) The numbers ("0 3") at the end
+of this line indicate the number of end states satisfying the "exists"
+clause (0) and the number not not satisfying that clause (3).
+
+Another important part of this output is shown in lines 2-5, repeated here:
+
+ 2 States 3
+ 3 1:r0=0; 1:r1=0;
+ 4 1:r0=0; 1:r1=1;
+ 5 1:r0=1; 1:r1=1;
+
+Line 2 gives the total number of end states, and each of lines 3-5 list
+one of these states, with the first ("1:r0=0; 1:r1=0;") indicating that
+both of P1()'s loads returned the value "0". As expected, given the
+"Never" on line 10, the state flagged by the "exists" clause is not
+listed. This full list of states can be helpful when debugging a new
+litmus test.
+
+The rest of the output is not normally needed, either due to irrelevance
+or due to being redundant with the lines discussed above. However, the
+following paragraph lists them for the benefit of readers possessed of
+an insatiable curiosity. Other readers should feel free to skip ahead.
+
+Line 1 echos the test name, along with the "Test" and "Allowed". Line 6's
+"No" says that the "exists" clause was not satisfied by any execution,
+and as such it has the same meaning as line 10's "Never". Line 7 is a
+lead-in to line 8's "Positive: 0 Negative: 3", which lists the number
+of end states satisfying and not satisfying the "exists" clause, just
+like the two numbers at the end of line 10. Line 9 repeats the "exists"
+clause so that you don't have to look it up in the litmus-test file.
+The number at the end of line 11 (which begins with "Time") gives the
+time in seconds required to analyze the litmus test. Small tests such
+as this one complete in a few milliseconds, so "0.00" is quite common.
+Line 12 gives a hash of the contents for the litmus-test file, and is used
+by tooling that manages litmus tests and their output. This tooling is
+used by people modifying LKMM itself, and among other things lets such
+people know which of the several thousand relevant litmus tests were
+affected by a given change to LKMM.
+
+
+Initialization
+--------------
+
+The previous example relied on the default zero initialization for
+"x" and "y", but a similar litmus test could instead initialize them
+to some other value:
+
+ 1 C MP+pooncerelease+poacquireonce
+ 2
+ 3 {
+ 4 x=42;
+ 5 y=42;
+ 6 }
+ 7
+ 8 P0(int *x, int *y)
+ 9 {
+10 WRITE_ONCE(*x, 1);
+11 smp_store_release(y, 1);
+12 }
+13
+14 P1(int *x, int *y)
+15 {
+16 int r0;
+17 int r1;
+18
+19 r0 = smp_load_acquire(y);
+20 r1 = READ_ONCE(*x);
+21 }
+22
+23 exists (1:r0=1 /\ 1:r1=42)
+
+Lines 3-6 now initialize both "x" and "y" to the value 42. This also
+means that the "exists" clause on line 23 must change "1:r1=0" to
+"1:r1=42".
+
+Running the test gives the same overall result as before, but with the
+value 42 appearing in place of the value zero:
+
+ 1 Test MP+pooncerelease+poacquireonce Allowed
+ 2 States 3
+ 3 1:r0=1; 1:r1=1;
+ 4 1:r0=42; 1:r1=1;
+ 5 1:r0=42; 1:r1=42;
+ 6 No
+ 7 Witnesses
+ 8 Positive: 0 Negative: 3
+ 9 Condition exists (1:r0=1 /\ 1:r1=42)
+10 Observation MP+pooncerelease+poacquireonce Never 0 3
+11 Time MP+pooncerelease+poacquireonce 0.02
+12 Hash=ab9a9b7940a75a792266be279a980156
+
+It is tempting to avoid the open-coded repetitions of the value "42"
+by defining another global variable "initval=42" and replacing all
+occurrences of "42" with "initval". This will not, repeat *not*,
+initialize "x" and "y" to 42, but instead to the address of "initval"
+(try it!). See the section below on linked lists to learn more about
+why this approach to initialization can be useful.
+
+
+Control Structures
+------------------
+
+LKMM supports the C-language "if" statement, which allows modeling of
+conditional branches. In LKMM, conditional branches can affect ordering,
+but only if you are *very* careful (compilers are surprisingly able
+to optimize away conditional branches). The following example shows
+the "load buffering" (LB) use case that is used in the Linux kernel to
+synchronize between ring-buffer producers and consumers. In the example
+below, P0() is one side checking to see if an operation may proceed and
+P1() is the other side completing its update.
+
+ 1 C LB+fencembonceonce+ctrlonceonce
+ 2
+ 3 {}
+ 4
+ 5 P0(int *x, int *y)
+ 6 {
+ 7 int r0;
+ 8
+ 9 r0 = READ_ONCE(*x);
+10 if (r0)
+11 WRITE_ONCE(*y, 1);
+12 }
+13
+14 P1(int *x, int *y)
+15 {
+16 int r0;
+17
+18 r0 = READ_ONCE(*y);
+19 smp_mb();
+20 WRITE_ONCE(*x, 1);
+21 }
+22
+23 exists (0:r0=1 /\ 1:r0=1)
+
+P1()'s "if" statement on line 10 works as expected, so that line 11 is
+executed only if line 9 loads a non-zero value from "x". Because P1()'s
+write of "1" to "x" happens only after P1()'s read from "y", one would
+hope that the "exists" clause cannot be satisfied. LKMM agrees:
+
+ 1 Test LB+fencembonceonce+ctrlonceonce Allowed
+ 2 States 2
+ 3 0:r0=0; 1:r0=0;
+ 4 0:r0=1; 1:r0=0;
+ 5 No
+ 6 Witnesses
+ 7 Positive: 0 Negative: 2
+ 8 Condition exists (0:r0=1 /\ 1:r0=1)
+ 9 Observation LB+fencembonceonce+ctrlonceonce Never 0 2
+10 Time LB+fencembonceonce+ctrlonceonce 0.00
+11 Hash=e5260556f6de495fd39b556d1b831c3b
+
+However, there is no "while" statement due to the fact that full
+state-space search has some difficulty with iteration. However, there
+are tricks that may be used to handle some special cases, which are
+discussed below. In addition, loop-unrolling tricks may be applied,
+albeit sparingly.
+
+
+Tricks and Traps
+================
+
+This section covers extracting debug output from herd7, emulating
+spin loops, handling trivial linked lists, adding comments to litmus tests,
+emulating call_rcu(), and finally tricks to improve herd7 performance
+in order to better handle large litmus tests.
+
+
+Debug Output
+------------
+
+By default, the herd7 state output includes all variables mentioned
+in the "exists" clause. But sometimes debugging efforts are greatly
+aided by the values of other variables. Consider this litmus test
+(tools/memory-order/litmus-tests/SB+rfionceonce-poonceonces.litmus but
+slightly modified), which probes an obscure corner of hardware memory
+ordering:
+
+ 1 C SB+rfionceonce-poonceonces
+ 2
+ 3 {}
+ 4
+ 5 P0(int *x, int *y)
+ 6 {
+ 7 int r1;
+ 8 int r2;
+ 9
+10 WRITE_ONCE(*x, 1);
+11 r1 = READ_ONCE(*x);
+12 r2 = READ_ONCE(*y);
+13 }
+14
+15 P1(int *x, int *y)
+16 {
+17 int r3;
+18 int r4;
+19
+20 WRITE_ONCE(*y, 1);
+21 r3 = READ_ONCE(*y);
+22 r4 = READ_ONCE(*x);
+23 }
+24
+25 exists (0:r2=0 /\ 1:r4=0)
+
+The herd7 output is as follows:
+
+ 1 Test SB+rfionceonce-poonceonces Allowed
+ 2 States 4
+ 3 0:r2=0; 1:r4=0;
+ 4 0:r2=0; 1:r4=1;
+ 5 0:r2=1; 1:r4=0;
+ 6 0:r2=1; 1:r4=1;
+ 7 Ok
+ 8 Witnesses
+ 9 Positive: 1 Negative: 3
+10 Condition exists (0:r2=0 /\ 1:r4=0)
+11 Observation SB+rfionceonce-poonceonces Sometimes 1 3
+12 Time SB+rfionceonce-poonceonces 0.01
+13 Hash=c7f30fe0faebb7d565405d55b7318ada
+
+(This output indicates that CPUs are permitted to "snoop their own
+store buffers", which all of Linux's CPU families other than s390 will
+happily do. Such snooping results in disagreement among CPUs on the
+order of stores from different CPUs, which is rarely an issue.)
+
+But the herd7 output shows only the two variables mentioned in the
+"exists" clause. Someone modifying this test might wish to know the
+values of "x", "y", "0:r1", and "0:r3" as well. The "locations"
+statement on line 25 shows how to cause herd7 to display additional
+variables:
+
+ 1 C SB+rfionceonce-poonceonces
+ 2
+ 3 {}
+ 4
+ 5 P0(int *x, int *y)
+ 6 {
+ 7 int r1;
+ 8 int r2;
+ 9
+10 WRITE_ONCE(*x, 1);
+11 r1 = READ_ONCE(*x);
+12 r2 = READ_ONCE(*y);
+13 }
+14
+15 P1(int *x, int *y)
+16 {
+17 int r3;
+18 int r4;
+19
+20 WRITE_ONCE(*y, 1);
+21 r3 = READ_ONCE(*y);
+22 r4 = READ_ONCE(*x);
+23 }
+24
+25 locations [0:r1; 1:r3; x; y]
+26 exists (0:r2=0 /\ 1:r4=0)
+
+The herd7 output then displays the values of all the variables:
+
+ 1 Test SB+rfionceonce-poonceonces Allowed
+ 2 States 4
+ 3 0:r1=1; 0:r2=0; 1:r3=1; 1:r4=0; x=1; y=1;
+ 4 0:r1=1; 0:r2=0; 1:r3=1; 1:r4=1; x=1; y=1;
+ 5 0:r1=1; 0:r2=1; 1:r3=1; 1:r4=0; x=1; y=1;
+ 6 0:r1=1; 0:r2=1; 1:r3=1; 1:r4=1; x=1; y=1;
+ 7 Ok
+ 8 Witnesses
+ 9 Positive: 1 Negative: 3
+10 Condition exists (0:r2=0 /\ 1:r4=0)
+11 Observation SB+rfionceonce-poonceonces Sometimes 1 3
+12 Time SB+rfionceonce-poonceonces 0.01
+13 Hash=40de8418c4b395388f6501cafd1ed38d
+
+What if you would like to know the value of a particular global variable
+at some particular point in a given process's execution? One approach
+is to use a READ_ONCE() to load that global variable into a new local
+variable, then add that local variable to the "locations" clause.
+But be careful: In some litmus tests, adding a READ_ONCE() will change
+the outcome! For one example, please see the C-READ_ONCE.litmus and
+C-READ_ONCE-omitted.litmus tests located here:
+
+ https://github.com/paulmckrcu/litmus/blob/master/manual/kernel/
+
+
+Spin Loops
+----------
+
+The analysis carried out by herd7 explores full state space, which is
+at best of exponential time complexity. Adding processes and increasing
+the amount of code in a give process can greatly increase execution time.
+Potentially infinite loops, such as those used to wait for locks to
+become available, are clearly problematic.
+
+Fortunately, it is possible to avoid state-space explosion by specially
+modeling such loops. For example, the following litmus tests emulates
+locking using xchg_acquire(), but instead of enclosing xchg_acquire()
+in a spin loop, it instead excludes executions that fail to acquire the
+lock using a herd7 "filter" clause. Note that for exclusive locking, you
+are better off using the spin_lock() and spin_unlock() that LKMM directly
+models, if for no other reason that these are much faster. However, the
+techniques illustrated in this section can be used for other purposes,
+such as emulating reader-writer locking, which LKMM does not yet model.
+
+ 1 C C-SB+l-o-o-u+l-o-o-u-X
+ 2
+ 3 {
+ 4 }
+ 5
+ 6 P0(int *sl, int *x0, int *x1)
+ 7 {
+ 8 int r2;
+ 9 int r1;
+10
+11 r2 = xchg_acquire(sl, 1);
+12 WRITE_ONCE(*x0, 1);
+13 r1 = READ_ONCE(*x1);
+14 smp_store_release(sl, 0);
+15 }
+16
+17 P1(int *sl, int *x0, int *x1)
+18 {
+19 int r2;
+20 int r1;
+21
+22 r2 = xchg_acquire(sl, 1);
+23 WRITE_ONCE(*x1, 1);
+24 r1 = READ_ONCE(*x0);
+25 smp_store_release(sl, 0);
+26 }
+27
+28 filter (0:r2=0 /\ 1:r2=0)
+29 exists (0:r1=0 /\ 1:r1=0)
+
+This litmus test may be found here:
+
+https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/paulmck/perfbook.git/tree/CodeSamples/formal/herd/C-SB+l-o-o-u+l-o-o-u-X.litmus
+
+This test uses two global variables, "x1" and "x2", and also emulates a
+single global spinlock named "sl". This spinlock is held by whichever
+process changes the value of "sl" from "0" to "1", and is released when
+that process sets "sl" back to "0". P0()'s lock acquisition is emulated
+on line 11 using xchg_acquire(), which unconditionally stores the value
+"1" to "sl" and stores either "0" or "1" to "r2", depending on whether
+the lock acquisition was successful or unsuccessful (due to "sl" already
+having the value "1"), respectively. P1() operates in a similar manner.
+
+Rather unconventionally, execution appears to proceed to the critical
+section on lines 12 and 13 in either case. Line 14 then uses an
+smp_store_release() to store zero to "sl", thus emulating lock release.
+
+The case where xchg_acquire() fails to acquire the lock is handled by
+the "filter" clause on line 28, which tells herd7 to keep only those
+executions in which both "0:r2" and "1:r2" are zero, that is to pay
+attention only to those executions in which both locks are actually
+acquired. Thus, the bogus executions that would execute the critical
+sections are discarded and any effects that they might have had are
+ignored. Note well that the "filter" clause keeps those executions
+for which its expression is satisfied, that is, for which the expression
+evaluates to true. In other words, the "filter" clause says what to
+keep, not what to discard.
+
+The result of running this test is as follows:
+
+ 1 Test C-SB+l-o-o-u+l-o-o-u-X Allowed
+ 2 States 2
+ 3 0:r1=0; 1:r1=1;
+ 4 0:r1=1; 1:r1=0;
+ 5 No
+ 6 Witnesses
+ 7 Positive: 0 Negative: 2
+ 8 Condition exists (0:r1=0 /\ 1:r1=0)
+ 9 Observation C-SB+l-o-o-u+l-o-o-u-X Never 0 2
+10 Time C-SB+l-o-o-u+l-o-o-u-X 0.03
+
+The "Never" on line 9 indicates that this use of xchg_acquire() and
+smp_store_release() really does correctly emulate locking.
+
+Why doesn't the litmus test take the simpler approach of using a spin loop
+to handle failed spinlock acquisitions, like the kernel does? The key
+insight behind this litmus test is that spin loops have no effect on the
+possible "exists"-clause outcomes of program execution in the absence
+of deadlock. In other words, given a high-quality lock-acquisition
+primitive in a deadlock-free program running on high-quality hardware,
+each lock acquisition will eventually succeed. Because herd7 already
+explores the full state space, the length of time required to actually
+acquire the lock does not matter. After all, herd7 already models all
+possible durations of the xchg_acquire() statements.
+
+Why not just add the "filter" clause to the "exists" clause, thus
+avoiding the "filter" clause entirely? This does work, but is slower.
+The reason that the "filter" clause is faster is that (in the common case)
+herd7 knows to abandon an execution as soon as the "filter" expression
+fails to be satisfied. In contrast, the "exists" clause is evaluated
+only at the end of time, thus requiring herd7 to waste time on bogus
+executions in which both critical sections proceed concurrently. In
+addition, some LKMM users like the separation of concerns provided by
+using the both the "filter" and "exists" clauses.
+
+Readers lacking a pathological interest in odd corner cases should feel
+free to skip the remainder of this section.
+
+But what if the litmus test were to temporarily set "0:r2" to a non-zero
+value? Wouldn't that cause herd7 to abandon the execution prematurely
+due to an early mismatch of the "filter" clause?
+
+Why not just try it? Line 4 of the following modified litmus test
+introduces a new global variable "x2" that is initialized to "1". Line 23
+of P1() reads that variable into "1:r2" to force an early mismatch with
+the "filter" clause. Line 24 does a known-true "if" condition to avoid
+and static analysis that herd7 might do. Finally the "exists" clause
+on line 32 is updated to a condition that is alway satisfied at the end
+of the test.
+
+ 1 C C-SB+l-o-o-u+l-o-o-u-X
+ 2
+ 3 {
+ 4 x2=1;
+ 5 }
+ 6
+ 7 P0(int *sl, int *x0, int *x1)
+ 8 {
+ 9 int r2;
+10 int r1;
+11
+12 r2 = xchg_acquire(sl, 1);
+13 WRITE_ONCE(*x0, 1);
+14 r1 = READ_ONCE(*x1);
+15 smp_store_release(sl, 0);
+16 }
+17
+18 P1(int *sl, int *x0, int *x1, int *x2)
+19 {
+20 int r2;
+21 int r1;
+22
+23 r2 = READ_ONCE(*x2);
+24 if (r2)
+25 r2 = xchg_acquire(sl, 1);
+26 WRITE_ONCE(*x1, 1);
+27 r1 = READ_ONCE(*x0);
+28 smp_store_release(sl, 0);
+29 }
+30
+31 filter (0:r2=0 /\ 1:r2=0)
+32 exists (x1=1)
+
+If the "filter" clause were to check each variable at each point in the
+execution, running this litmus test would display no executions because
+all executions would be filtered out at line 23. However, the output
+is instead as follows:
+
+ 1 Test C-SB+l-o-o-u+l-o-o-u-X Allowed
+ 2 States 1
+ 3 x1=1;
+ 4 Ok
+ 5 Witnesses
+ 6 Positive: 2 Negative: 0
+ 7 Condition exists (x1=1)
+ 8 Observation C-SB+l-o-o-u+l-o-o-u-X Always 2 0
+ 9 Time C-SB+l-o-o-u+l-o-o-u-X 0.04
+10 Hash=080bc508da7f291e122c6de76c0088e3
+
+Line 3 shows that there is one execution that did not get filtered out,
+so the "filter" clause is evaluated only on the last assignment to
+the variables that it checks. In this case, the "filter" clause is a
+disjunction, so it might be evaluated twice, once at the final (and only)
+assignment to "0:r2" and once at the final assignment to "1:r2".
+
+
+Linked Lists
+------------
+
+LKMM can handle linked lists, but only linked lists in which each node
+contains nothing except a pointer to the next node in the list. This is
+of course quite restrictive, but there is nevertheless quite a bit that
+can be done within these confines, as can be seen in the litmus test
+at tools/memory-model/litmus-tests/MP+onceassign+derefonce.litmus:
+
+ 1 C MP+onceassign+derefonce
+ 2
+ 3 {
+ 4 y=z;
+ 5 z=0;
+ 6 }
+ 7
+ 8 P0(int *x, int **y)
+ 9 {
+10 WRITE_ONCE(*x, 1);
+11 rcu_assign_pointer(*y, x);
+12 }
+13
+14 P1(int *x, int **y)
+15 {
+16 int *r0;
+17 int r1;
+18
+19 rcu_read_lock();
+20 r0 = rcu_dereference(*y);
+21 r1 = READ_ONCE(*r0);
+22 rcu_read_unlock();
+23 }
+24
+25 exists (1:r0=x /\ 1:r1=0)
+
+Line 4's "y=z" may seem odd, given that "z" has not yet been initialized.
+But "y=z" does not set the value of "y" to that of "z", but instead
+sets the value of "y" to the *address* of "z". Lines 4 and 5 therefore
+create a simple linked list, with "y" pointing to "z" and "z" having a
+NULL pointer. A much longer linked list could be created if desired,
+and circular singly linked lists can also be created and manipulated.
+
+The "exists" clause works the same way, with the "1:r0=x" comparing P1()'s
+"r0" not to the value of "x", but again to its address. This term of the
+"exists" clause therefore tests whether line 20's load from "y" saw the
+value stored by line 11, which is in fact what is required in this case.
+
+P0()'s line 10 initializes "x" to the value 1 then line 11 links to "x"
+from "y", replacing "z".
+
+P1()'s line 20 loads a pointer from "y", and line 21 dereferences that
+pointer. The RCU read-side critical section spanning lines 19-22 is just
+for show in this example. Note that the address used for line 21's load
+depends on (in this case, "is exactly the same as") the value loaded by
+line 20. This is an example of what is called an "address dependency".
+This particular address dependency extends from the load on line 20 to the
+load on line 21. Address dependencies provide a weak form of ordering.
+
+Running this test results in the following:
+
+ 1 Test MP+onceassign+derefonce Allowed
+ 2 States 2
+ 3 1:r0=x; 1:r1=1;
+ 4 1:r0=z; 1:r1=0;
+ 5 No
+ 6 Witnesses
+ 7 Positive: 0 Negative: 2
+ 8 Condition exists (1:r0=x /\ 1:r1=0)
+ 9 Observation MP+onceassign+derefonce Never 0 2
+10 Time MP+onceassign+derefonce 0.00
+11 Hash=49ef7a741563570102448a256a0c8568
+
+The only possible outcomes feature P1() loading a pointer to "z"
+(which contains zero) on the one hand and P1() loading a pointer to "x"
+(which contains the value one) on the other. This should be reassuring
+because it says that RCU readers cannot see the old preinitialization
+values when accessing a newly inserted list node. This undesirable
+scenario is flagged by the "exists" clause, and would occur if P1()
+loaded a pointer to "x", but obtained the pre-initialization value of
+zero after dereferencing that pointer.
+
+
+Comments
+--------
+
+Different portions of a litmus test are processed by different parsers,
+which has the charming effect of requiring different comment syntax in
+different portions of the litmus test. The C-syntax portions use
+C-language comments (either "/* */" or "//"), while the other portions
+use Ocaml comments "(* *)".
+
+The following litmus test illustrates the comment style corresponding
+to each syntactic unit of the test:
+
+ 1 C MP+onceassign+derefonce (* A *)
+ 2
+ 3 (* B *)
+ 4
+ 5 {
+ 6 y=z; (* C *)
+ 7 z=0;
+ 8 } // D
+ 9
+10 // E
+11
+12 P0(int *x, int **y) // F
+13 {
+14 WRITE_ONCE(*x, 1); // G
+15 rcu_assign_pointer(*y, x);
+16 }
+17
+18 // H
+19
+20 P1(int *x, int **y)
+21 {
+22 int *r0;
+23 int r1;
+24
+25 rcu_read_lock();
+26 r0 = rcu_dereference(*y);
+27 r1 = READ_ONCE(*r0);
+28 rcu_read_unlock();
+29 }
+30
+31 // I
+32
+33 exists (* J *) (1:r0=x /\ (* K *) 1:r1=0) (* L *)
+
+In short, use C-language comments in the C code and Ocaml comments in
+the rest of the litmus test.
+
+On the other hand, if you prefer C-style comments everywhere, the
+C preprocessor is your friend.
+
+
+Asynchronous RCU Grace Periods
+------------------------------
+
+The following litmus test is derived from the example show in
+Documentation/litmus-tests/rcu/RCU+sync+free.litmus, but converted to
+emulate call_rcu():
+
+ 1 C RCU+sync+free
+ 2
+ 3 {
+ 4 int x = 1;
+ 5 int *y = &x;
+ 6 int z = 1;
+ 7 }
+ 8
+ 9 P0(int *x, int *z, int **y)
+10 {
+11 int *r0;
+12 int r1;
+13
+14 rcu_read_lock();
+15 r0 = rcu_dereference(*y);
+16 r1 = READ_ONCE(*r0);
+17 rcu_read_unlock();
+18 }
+19
+20 P1(int *z, int **y, int *c)
+21 {
+22 rcu_assign_pointer(*y, z);
+23 smp_store_release(*c, 1); // Emulate call_rcu().
+24 }
+25
+26 P2(int *x, int *z, int **y, int *c)
+27 {
+28 int r0;
+29
+30 r0 = smp_load_acquire(*c); // Note call_rcu() request.
+31 synchronize_rcu(); // Wait one grace period.
+32 WRITE_ONCE(*x, 0); // Emulate the RCU callback.
+33 }
+34
+35 filter (2:r0=1) (* Reject too-early starts. *)
+36 exists (0:r0=x /\ 0:r1=0)
+
+Lines 4-6 initialize a linked list headed by "y" that initially contains
+"x". In addition, "z" is pre-initialized to prepare for P1(), which
+will replace "x" with "z" in this list.
+
+P0() on lines 9-18 enters an RCU read-side critical section, loads the
+list header "y" and dereferences it, leaving the node in "0:r0" and
+the node's value in "0:r1".
+
+P1() on lines 20-24 updates the list header to instead reference "z",
+then emulates call_rcu() by doing a release store into "c".
+
+P2() on lines 27-33 emulates the behind-the-scenes effect of doing a
+call_rcu(). Line 30 first does an acquire load from "c", then line 31
+waits for an RCU grace period to elapse, and finally line 32 emulates
+the RCU callback, which in turn emulates a call to kfree().
+
+Of course, it is possible for P2() to start too soon, so that the
+value of "2:r0" is zero rather than the required value of "1".
+The "filter" clause on line 35 handles this possibility, rejecting
+all executions in which "2:r0" is not equal to the value "1".
+
+
+Performance
+-----------
+
+LKMM's exploration of the full state-space can be extremely helpful,
+but it does not come for free. The price is exponential computational
+complexity in terms of the number of processes, the average number
+of statements in each process, and the total number of stores in the
+litmus test.
+
+So it is best to start small and then work up. Where possible, break
+your code down into small pieces each representing a core concurrency
+requirement.
+
+That said, herd7 is quite fast. On an unprepossessing x86 laptop, it
+was able to analyze the following 10-process RCU litmus test in about
+six seconds.
+
+https://github.com/paulmckrcu/litmus/blob/master/auto/C-RW-R+RW-R+RW-G+RW-G+RW-G+RW-G+RW-R+RW-R+RW-R+RW-R.litmus
+
+One way to make herd7 run faster is to use the "-speedcheck true" option.
+This option prevents herd7 from generating all possible end states,
+instead causing it to focus solely on whether or not the "exists"
+clause can be satisfied. With this option, herd7 evaluates the above
+litmus test in about 300 milliseconds, for more than an order of magnitude
+improvement in performance.
+
+Larger 16-process litmus tests that would normally consume 15 minutes
+of time complete in about 40 seconds with this option. To be fair,
+you do get an extra 65,535 states when you leave off the "-speedcheck
+true" option.
+
+https://github.com/paulmckrcu/litmus/blob/master/auto/C-RW-R+RW-R+RW-G+RW-G+RW-G+RW-G+RW-R+RW-R+RW-R+RW-R+RW-G+RW-G+RW-G+RW-G+RW-R+RW-R.litmus
+
+Nevertheless, litmus-test analysis really is of exponential complexity,
+whether with or without "-speedcheck true". Increasing by just three
+processes to a 19-process litmus test requires 2 hours and 40 minutes
+without, and about 8 minutes with "-speedcheck true". Each of these
+results represent roughly an order of magnitude slowdown compared to the
+16-process litmus test. Again, to be fair, the multi-hour run explores
+no fewer than 524,287 additional states compared to the shorter one.
+
+https://github.com/paulmckrcu/litmus/blob/master/auto/C-RW-R+RW-R+RW-G+RW-G+RW-G+RW-G+RW-R+RW-R+RW-R+RW-R+RW-R+RW-R+RW-G+RW-G+RW-G+RW-G+RW-R+RW-R+RW-R.litmus
+
+If you don't like command-line arguments, you can obtain a similar speedup
+by adding a "filter" clause with exactly the same expression as your
+"exists" clause.
+
+However, please note that seeing the full set of states can be extremely
+helpful when developing and debugging litmus tests.
+
+
+LIMITATIONS
+===========
+
+Limitations of the Linux-kernel memory model (LKMM) include:
+
+1. Compiler optimizations are not accurately modeled. Of course,
+ the use of READ_ONCE() and WRITE_ONCE() limits the compiler's
+ ability to optimize, but under some circumstances it is possible
+ for the compiler to undermine the memory model. For more
+ information, see Documentation/explanation.txt (in particular,
+ the "THE PROGRAM ORDER RELATION: po AND po-loc" and "A WARNING"
+ sections).
+
+ Note that this limitation in turn limits LKMM's ability to
+ accurately model address, control, and data dependencies.
+ For example, if the compiler can deduce the value of some variable
+ carrying a dependency, then the compiler can break that dependency
+ by substituting a constant of that value.
+
+2. Multiple access sizes for a single variable are not supported,
+ and neither are misaligned or partially overlapping accesses.
+
+3. Exceptions and interrupts are not modeled. In some cases,
+ this limitation can be overcome by modeling the interrupt or
+ exception with an additional process.
+
+4. I/O such as MMIO or DMA is not supported.
+
+5. Self-modifying code (such as that found in the kernel's
+ alternatives mechanism, function tracer, Berkeley Packet Filter
+ JIT compiler, and module loader) is not supported.
+
+6. Complete modeling of all variants of atomic read-modify-write
+ operations, locking primitives, and RCU is not provided.
+ For example, call_rcu() and rcu_barrier() are not supported.
+ However, a substantial amount of support is provided for these
+ operations, as shown in the linux-kernel.def file.
+
+ Here are specific limitations:
+
+ a. When rcu_assign_pointer() is passed NULL, the Linux
+ kernel provides no ordering, but LKMM models this
+ case as a store release.
+
+ b. The "unless" RMW operations are not currently modeled:
+ atomic_long_add_unless(), atomic_inc_unless_negative(),
+ and atomic_dec_unless_positive(). These can be emulated
+ in litmus tests, for example, by using atomic_cmpxchg().
+
+ One exception of this limitation is atomic_add_unless(),
+ which is provided directly by herd7 (so no corresponding
+ definition in linux-kernel.def). atomic_add_unless() is
+ modeled by herd7 therefore it can be used in litmus tests.
+
+ c. The call_rcu() function is not modeled. As was shown above,
+ it can be emulated in litmus tests by adding another
+ process that invokes synchronize_rcu() and the body of the
+ callback function, with (for example) a release-acquire
+ from the site of the emulated call_rcu() to the beginning
+ of the additional process.
+
+ d. The rcu_barrier() function is not modeled. It can be
+ emulated in litmus tests emulating call_rcu() via
+ (for example) a release-acquire from the end of each
+ additional call_rcu() process to the site of the
+ emulated rcu-barrier().
+
+ e. Although sleepable RCU (SRCU) is now modeled, there
+ are some subtle differences between its semantics and
+ those in the Linux kernel. For example, the kernel
+ might interpret the following sequence as two partially
+ overlapping SRCU read-side critical sections:
+
+ 1 r1 = srcu_read_lock(&my_srcu);
+ 2 do_something_1();
+ 3 r2 = srcu_read_lock(&my_srcu);
+ 4 do_something_2();
+ 5 srcu_read_unlock(&my_srcu, r1);
+ 6 do_something_3();
+ 7 srcu_read_unlock(&my_srcu, r2);
+
+ In contrast, LKMM will interpret this as a nested pair of
+ SRCU read-side critical sections, with the outer critical
+ section spanning lines 1-7 and the inner critical section
+ spanning lines 3-5.
+
+ This difference would be more of a concern had anyone
+ identified a reasonable use case for partially overlapping
+ SRCU read-side critical sections. For more information
+ on the trickiness of such overlapping, please see:
+ https://paulmck.livejournal.com/40593.html
+
+ f. Reader-writer locking is not modeled. It can be
+ emulated in litmus tests using atomic read-modify-write
+ operations.
+
+The fragment of the C language supported by these litmus tests is quite
+limited and in some ways non-standard:
+
+1. There is no automatic C-preprocessor pass. You can of course
+ run it manually, if you choose.
+
+2. There is no way to create functions other than the Pn() functions
+ that model the concurrent processes.
+
+3. The Pn() functions' formal parameters must be pointers to the
+ global shared variables. Nothing can be passed by value into
+ these functions.
+
+4. The only functions that can be invoked are those built directly
+ into herd7 or that are defined in the linux-kernel.def file.
+
+5. The "switch", "do", "for", "while", and "goto" C statements are
+ not supported. The "switch" statement can be emulated by the
+ "if" statement. The "do", "for", and "while" statements can
+ often be emulated by manually unrolling the loop, or perhaps by
+ enlisting the aid of the C preprocessor to minimize the resulting
+ code duplication. Some uses of "goto" can be emulated by "if",
+ and some others by unrolling.
+
+6. Although you can use a wide variety of types in litmus-test
+ variable declarations, and especially in global-variable
+ declarations, the "herd7" tool understands only int and
+ pointer types. There is no support for floating-point types,
+ enumerations, characters, strings, arrays, or structures.
+
+7. Parsing of variable declarations is very loose, with almost no
+ type checking.
+
+8. Initializers differ from their C-language counterparts.
+ For example, when an initializer contains the name of a shared
+ variable, that name denotes a pointer to that variable, not
+ the current value of that variable. For example, "int x = y"
+ is interpreted the way "int x = &y" would be in C.
+
+9. Dynamic memory allocation is not supported, although this can
+ be worked around in some cases by supplying multiple statically
+ allocated variables.
+
+Some of these limitations may be overcome in the future, but others are
+more likely to be addressed by incorporating the Linux-kernel memory model
+into other tools.
+
+Finally, please note that LKMM is subject to change as hardware, use cases,
+and compilers evolve.
diff --git a/tools/memory-model/Documentation/recipes.txt b/tools/memory-model/Documentation/recipes.txt
index 63c4adfed884..03f58b11c252 100644
--- a/tools/memory-model/Documentation/recipes.txt
+++ b/tools/memory-model/Documentation/recipes.txt
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
This document provides "recipes", that is, litmus tests for commonly
occurring situations, as well as a few that illustrate subtly broken but
attractive nuisances. Many of these recipes include example code from
-v4.13 of the Linux kernel.
+v5.7 of the Linux kernel.
The first section covers simple special cases, the second section
takes off the training wheels to cover more involved examples,
@@ -278,7 +278,7 @@ is present if the value loaded determines the address of a later access
first place (control dependency). Note that the term "data dependency"
is sometimes casually used to cover both address and data dependencies.
-In lib/prime_numbers.c, the expand_to_next_prime() function invokes
+In lib/math/prime_numbers.c, the expand_to_next_prime() function invokes
rcu_assign_pointer(), and the next_prime_number() function invokes
rcu_dereference(). This combination mediates access to a bit vector
that is expanded as additional primes are needed.
diff --git a/tools/memory-model/Documentation/references.txt b/tools/memory-model/Documentation/references.txt
index ecbbaa5396d4..c5fdfd19df24 100644
--- a/tools/memory-model/Documentation/references.txt
+++ b/tools/memory-model/Documentation/references.txt
@@ -120,7 +120,7 @@ o Jade Alglave, Luc Maranget, and Michael Tautschnig. 2014. "Herding
o Jade Alglave, Patrick Cousot, and Luc Maranget. 2016. "Syntax and
semantics of the weak consistency model specification language
- cat". CoRR abs/1608.07531 (2016). http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.07531
+ cat". CoRR abs/1608.07531 (2016). https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.07531
Memory-model comparisons
diff --git a/tools/memory-model/Documentation/simple.txt b/tools/memory-model/Documentation/simple.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..81e1a0ec5342
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/memory-model/Documentation/simple.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,271 @@
+This document provides options for those wishing to keep their
+memory-ordering lives simple, as is necessary for those whose domain
+is complex. After all, there are bugs other than memory-ordering bugs,
+and the time spent gaining memory-ordering knowledge is not available
+for gaining domain knowledge. Furthermore Linux-kernel memory model
+(LKMM) is quite complex, with subtle differences in code often having
+dramatic effects on correctness.
+
+The options near the beginning of this list are quite simple. The idea
+is not that kernel hackers don't already know about them, but rather
+that they might need the occasional reminder.
+
+Please note that this is a generic guide, and that specific subsystems
+will often have special requirements or idioms. For example, developers
+of MMIO-based device drivers will often need to use mb(), rmb(), and
+wmb(), and therefore might find smp_mb(), smp_rmb(), and smp_wmb()
+to be more natural than smp_load_acquire() and smp_store_release().
+On the other hand, those coming in from other environments will likely
+be more familiar with these last two.
+
+
+Single-threaded code
+====================
+
+In single-threaded code, there is no reordering, at least assuming
+that your toolchain and hardware are working correctly. In addition,
+it is generally a mistake to assume your code will only run in a single
+threaded context as the kernel can enter the same code path on multiple
+CPUs at the same time. One important exception is a function that makes
+no external data references.
+
+In the general case, you will need to take explicit steps to ensure that
+your code really is executed within a single thread that does not access
+shared variables. A simple way to achieve this is to define a global lock
+that you acquire at the beginning of your code and release at the end,
+taking care to ensure that all references to your code's shared data are
+also carried out under that same lock. Because only one thread can hold
+this lock at a given time, your code will be executed single-threaded.
+This approach is called "code locking".
+
+Code locking can severely limit both performance and scalability, so it
+should be used with caution, and only on code paths that execute rarely.
+After all, a huge amount of effort was required to remove the Linux
+kernel's old "Big Kernel Lock", so let's please be very careful about
+adding new "little kernel locks".
+
+One of the advantages of locking is that, in happy contrast with the
+year 1981, almost all kernel developers are very familiar with locking.
+The Linux kernel's lockdep (CONFIG_PROVE_LOCKING=y) is very helpful with
+the formerly feared deadlock scenarios.
+
+Please use the standard locking primitives provided by the kernel rather
+than rolling your own. For one thing, the standard primitives interact
+properly with lockdep. For another thing, these primitives have been
+tuned to deal better with high contention. And for one final thing, it is
+surprisingly hard to correctly code production-quality lock acquisition
+and release functions. After all, even simple non-production-quality
+locking functions must carefully prevent both the CPU and the compiler
+from moving code in either direction across the locking function.
+
+Despite the scalability limitations of single-threaded code, RCU
+takes this approach for much of its grace-period processing and also
+for early-boot operation. The reason RCU is able to scale despite
+single-threaded grace-period processing is use of batching, where all
+updates that accumulated during one grace period are handled by the
+next one. In other words, slowing down grace-period processing makes
+it more efficient. Nor is RCU unique: Similar batching optimizations
+are used in many I/O operations.
+
+
+Packaged code
+=============
+
+Even if performance and scalability concerns prevent your code from
+being completely single-threaded, it is often possible to use library
+functions that handle the concurrency nearly or entirely on their own.
+This approach delegates any LKMM worries to the library maintainer.
+
+In the kernel, what is the "library"? Quite a bit. It includes the
+contents of the lib/ directory, much of the include/linux/ directory along
+with a lot of other heavily used APIs. But heavily used examples include
+the list macros (for example, include/linux/{,rcu}list.h), workqueues,
+smp_call_function(), and the various hash tables and search trees.
+
+
+Data locking
+============
+
+With code locking, we use single-threaded code execution to guarantee
+serialized access to the data that the code is accessing. However,
+we can also achieve this by instead associating the lock with specific
+instances of the data structures. This creates a "critical section"
+in the code execution that will execute as though it is single threaded.
+By placing all the accesses and modifications to a shared data structure
+inside a critical section, we ensure that the execution context that
+holds the lock has exclusive access to the shared data.
+
+The poster boy for this approach is the hash table, where placing a lock
+in each hash bucket allows operations on different buckets to proceed
+concurrently. This works because the buckets do not overlap with each
+other, so that an operation on one bucket does not interfere with any
+other bucket.
+
+As the number of buckets increases, data locking scales naturally.
+In particular, if the amount of data increases with the number of CPUs,
+increasing the number of buckets as the number of CPUs increase results
+in a naturally scalable data structure.
+
+
+Per-CPU processing
+==================
+
+Partitioning processing and data over CPUs allows each CPU to take
+a single-threaded approach while providing excellent performance and
+scalability. Of course, there is no free lunch: The dark side of this
+excellence is substantially increased memory footprint.
+
+In addition, it is sometimes necessary to occasionally update some global
+view of this processing and data, in which case something like locking
+must be used to protect this global view. This is the approach taken
+by the percpu_counter infrastructure. In many cases, there are already
+generic/library variants of commonly used per-cpu constructs available.
+Please use them rather than rolling your own.
+
+RCU uses DEFINE_PER_CPU*() declaration to create a number of per-CPU
+data sets. For example, each CPU does private quiescent-state processing
+within its instance of the per-CPU rcu_data structure, and then uses data
+locking to report quiescent states up the grace-period combining tree.
+
+
+Packaged primitives: Sequence locking
+=====================================
+
+Lockless programming is considered by many to be more difficult than
+lock-based programming, but there are a few lockless design patterns that
+have been built out into an API. One of these APIs is sequence locking.
+Although this APIs can be used in extremely complex ways, there are simple
+and effective ways of using it that avoid the need to pay attention to
+memory ordering.
+
+The basic keep-things-simple rule for sequence locking is "do not write
+in read-side code". Yes, you can do writes from within sequence-locking
+readers, but it won't be so simple. For example, such writes will be
+lockless and should be idempotent.
+
+For more sophisticated use cases, LKMM can guide you, including use
+cases involving combining sequence locking with other synchronization
+primitives. (LKMM does not yet know about sequence locking, so it is
+currently necessary to open-code it in your litmus tests.)
+
+Additional information may be found in include/linux/seqlock.h.
+
+Packaged primitives: RCU
+========================
+
+Another lockless design pattern that has been baked into an API
+is RCU. The Linux kernel makes sophisticated use of RCU, but the
+keep-things-simple rules for RCU are "do not write in read-side code"
+and "do not update anything that is visible to and accessed by readers",
+and "protect updates with locking".
+
+These rules are illustrated by the functions foo_update_a() and
+foo_get_a() shown in Documentation/RCU/whatisRCU.rst. Additional
+RCU usage patterns maybe found in Documentation/RCU and in the
+source code.
+
+
+Packaged primitives: Atomic operations
+======================================
+
+Back in the day, the Linux kernel had three types of atomic operations:
+
+1. Initialization and read-out, such as atomic_set() and atomic_read().
+
+2. Operations that did not return a value and provided no ordering,
+ such as atomic_inc() and atomic_dec().
+
+3. Operations that returned a value and provided full ordering, such as
+ atomic_add_return() and atomic_dec_and_test(). Note that some
+ value-returning operations provide full ordering only conditionally.
+ For example, cmpxchg() provides ordering only upon success.
+
+More recent kernels have operations that return a value but do not
+provide full ordering. These are flagged with either a _relaxed()
+suffix (providing no ordering), or an _acquire() or _release() suffix
+(providing limited ordering).
+
+Additional information may be found in these files:
+
+Documentation/atomic_t.txt
+Documentation/atomic_bitops.txt
+Documentation/core-api/atomic_ops.rst
+Documentation/core-api/refcount-vs-atomic.rst
+
+Reading code using these primitives is often also quite helpful.
+
+
+Lockless, fully ordered
+=======================
+
+When using locking, there often comes a time when it is necessary
+to access some variable or another without holding the data lock
+that serializes access to that variable.
+
+If you want to keep things simple, use the initialization and read-out
+operations from the previous section only when there are no racing
+accesses. Otherwise, use only fully ordered operations when accessing
+or modifying the variable. This approach guarantees that code prior
+to a given access to that variable will be seen by all CPUs has having
+happened before any code following any later access to that same variable.
+
+Please note that per-CPU functions are not atomic operations and
+hence they do not provide any ordering guarantees at all.
+
+If the lockless accesses are frequently executed reads that are used
+only for heuristics, or if they are frequently executed writes that
+are used only for statistics, please see the next section.
+
+
+Lockless statistics and heuristics
+==================================
+
+Unordered primitives such as atomic_read(), atomic_set(), READ_ONCE(), and
+WRITE_ONCE() can safely be used in some cases. These primitives provide
+no ordering, but they do prevent the compiler from carrying out a number
+of destructive optimizations (for which please see the next section).
+One example use for these primitives is statistics, such as per-CPU
+counters exemplified by the rt_cache_stat structure's routing-cache
+statistics counters. Another example use case is heuristics, such as
+the jiffies_till_first_fqs and jiffies_till_next_fqs kernel parameters
+controlling how often RCU scans for idle CPUs.
+
+But be careful. "Unordered" really does mean "unordered". It is all
+too easy to assume ordering, and this assumption must be avoided when
+using these primitives.
+
+
+Don't let the compiler trip you up
+==================================
+
+It can be quite tempting to use plain C-language accesses for lockless
+loads from and stores to shared variables. Although this is both
+possible and quite common in the Linux kernel, it does require a
+surprising amount of analysis, care, and knowledge about the compiler.
+Yes, some decades ago it was not unfair to consider a C compiler to be
+an assembler with added syntax and better portability, but the advent of
+sophisticated optimizing compilers mean that those days are long gone.
+Today's optimizing compilers can profoundly rewrite your code during the
+translation process, and have long been ready, willing, and able to do so.
+
+Therefore, if you really need to use C-language assignments instead of
+READ_ONCE(), WRITE_ONCE(), and so on, you will need to have a very good
+understanding of both the C standard and your compiler. Here are some
+introductory references and some tooling to start you on this noble quest:
+
+Who's afraid of a big bad optimizing compiler?
+ https://lwn.net/Articles/793253/
+Calibrating your fear of big bad optimizing compilers
+ https://lwn.net/Articles/799218/
+Concurrency bugs should fear the big bad data-race detector (part 1)
+ https://lwn.net/Articles/816850/
+Concurrency bugs should fear the big bad data-race detector (part 2)
+ https://lwn.net/Articles/816854/
+
+
+More complex use cases
+======================
+
+If the alternatives above do not do what you need, please look at the
+recipes-pairs.txt file to peel off the next layer of the memory-ordering
+onion.
diff --git a/tools/memory-model/README b/tools/memory-model/README
index ecb7385376bf..c8144d4aafa0 100644
--- a/tools/memory-model/README
+++ b/tools/memory-model/README
@@ -63,10 +63,32 @@ BASIC USAGE: HERD7
==================
The memory model is used, in conjunction with "herd7", to exhaustively
-explore the state space of small litmus tests.
+explore the state space of small litmus tests. Documentation describing
+the format, features, capabilities and limitations of these litmus
+tests is available in tools/memory-model/Documentation/litmus-tests.txt.
-For example, to run SB+fencembonceonces.litmus against the memory model:
+Example litmus tests may be found in the Linux-kernel source tree:
+ tools/memory-model/litmus-tests/
+ Documentation/litmus-tests/
+
+Several thousand more example litmus tests are available here:
+
+ https://github.com/paulmckrcu/litmus
+ https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/paulmck/perfbook.git/tree/CodeSamples/formal/herd
+ https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/paulmck/perfbook.git/tree/CodeSamples/formal/litmus
+
+Documentation describing litmus tests and now to use them may be found
+here:
+
+ tools/memory-model/Documentation/litmus-tests.txt
+
+The remainder of this section uses the SB+fencembonceonces.litmus test
+located in the tools/memory-model directory.
+
+To run SB+fencembonceonces.litmus against the memory model:
+
+ $ cd $LINUX_SOURCE_TREE/tools/memory-model
$ herd7 -conf linux-kernel.cfg litmus-tests/SB+fencembonceonces.litmus
Here is the corresponding output:
@@ -87,7 +109,11 @@ Here is the corresponding output:
The "Positive: 0 Negative: 3" and the "Never 0 3" each indicate that
this litmus test's "exists" clause can not be satisfied.
-See "herd7 -help" or "herdtools7/doc/" for more information.
+See "herd7 -help" or "herdtools7/doc/" for more information on running the
+tool itself, but please be aware that this documentation is intended for
+people who work on the memory model itself, that is, people making changes
+to the tools/memory-model/linux-kernel.* files. It is not intended for
+people focusing on writing, understanding, and running LKMM litmus tests.
=====================
@@ -124,7 +150,11 @@ that during two million trials, the state specified in this litmus
test's "exists" clause was not reached.
And, as with "herd7", please see "klitmus7 -help" or "herdtools7/doc/"
-for more information.
+for more information. And again, please be aware that this documentation
+is intended for people who work on the memory model itself, that is,
+people making changes to the tools/memory-model/linux-kernel.* files.
+It is not intended for people focusing on writing, understanding, and
+running LKMM litmus tests.
====================
@@ -137,12 +167,21 @@ Documentation/cheatsheet.txt
Documentation/explanation.txt
Describes the memory model in detail.
+Documentation/litmus-tests.txt
+ Describes the format, features, capabilities, and limitations
+ of the litmus tests that LKMM can evaluate.
+
Documentation/recipes.txt
Lists common memory-ordering patterns.
Documentation/references.txt
Provides background reading.
+Documentation/simple.txt
+ Starting point for someone new to Linux-kernel concurrency.
+ And also for those needing a reminder of the simpler approaches
+ to concurrency!
+
linux-kernel.bell
Categorizes the relevant instructions, including memory
references, memory barriers, atomic read-modify-write operations,
@@ -187,116 +226,3 @@ README
This file.
scripts Various scripts, see scripts/README.
-
-
-===========
-LIMITATIONS
-===========
-
-The Linux-kernel memory model (LKMM) has the following limitations:
-
-1. Compiler optimizations are not accurately modeled. Of course,
- the use of READ_ONCE() and WRITE_ONCE() limits the compiler's
- ability to optimize, but under some circumstances it is possible
- for the compiler to undermine the memory model. For more
- information, see Documentation/explanation.txt (in particular,
- the "THE PROGRAM ORDER RELATION: po AND po-loc" and "A WARNING"
- sections).
-
- Note that this limitation in turn limits LKMM's ability to
- accurately model address, control, and data dependencies.
- For example, if the compiler can deduce the value of some variable
- carrying a dependency, then the compiler can break that dependency
- by substituting a constant of that value.
-
-2. Multiple access sizes for a single variable are not supported,
- and neither are misaligned or partially overlapping accesses.
-
-3. Exceptions and interrupts are not modeled. In some cases,
- this limitation can be overcome by modeling the interrupt or
- exception with an additional process.
-
-4. I/O such as MMIO or DMA is not supported.
-
-5. Self-modifying code (such as that found in the kernel's
- alternatives mechanism, function tracer, Berkeley Packet Filter
- JIT compiler, and module loader) is not supported.
-
-6. Complete modeling of all variants of atomic read-modify-write
- operations, locking primitives, and RCU is not provided.
- For example, call_rcu() and rcu_barrier() are not supported.
- However, a substantial amount of support is provided for these
- operations, as shown in the linux-kernel.def file.
-
- a. When rcu_assign_pointer() is passed NULL, the Linux
- kernel provides no ordering, but LKMM models this
- case as a store release.
-
- b. The "unless" RMW operations are not currently modeled:
- atomic_long_add_unless(), atomic_inc_unless_negative(),
- and atomic_dec_unless_positive(). These can be emulated
- in litmus tests, for example, by using atomic_cmpxchg().
-
- One exception of this limitation is atomic_add_unless(),
- which is provided directly by herd7 (so no corresponding
- definition in linux-kernel.def). atomic_add_unless() is
- modeled by herd7 therefore it can be used in litmus tests.
-
- c. The call_rcu() function is not modeled. It can be
- emulated in litmus tests by adding another process that
- invokes synchronize_rcu() and the body of the callback
- function, with (for example) a release-acquire from
- the site of the emulated call_rcu() to the beginning
- of the additional process.
-
- d. The rcu_barrier() function is not modeled. It can be
- emulated in litmus tests emulating call_rcu() via
- (for example) a release-acquire from the end of each
- additional call_rcu() process to the site of the
- emulated rcu-barrier().
-
- e. Although sleepable RCU (SRCU) is now modeled, there
- are some subtle differences between its semantics and
- those in the Linux kernel. For example, the kernel
- might interpret the following sequence as two partially
- overlapping SRCU read-side critical sections:
-
- 1 r1 = srcu_read_lock(&my_srcu);
- 2 do_something_1();
- 3 r2 = srcu_read_lock(&my_srcu);
- 4 do_something_2();
- 5 srcu_read_unlock(&my_srcu, r1);
- 6 do_something_3();
- 7 srcu_read_unlock(&my_srcu, r2);
-
- In contrast, LKMM will interpret this as a nested pair of
- SRCU read-side critical sections, with the outer critical
- section spanning lines 1-7 and the inner critical section
- spanning lines 3-5.
-
- This difference would be more of a concern had anyone
- identified a reasonable use case for partially overlapping
- SRCU read-side critical sections. For more information,
- please see: https://paulmck.livejournal.com/40593.html
-
- f. Reader-writer locking is not modeled. It can be
- emulated in litmus tests using atomic read-modify-write
- operations.
-
-The "herd7" tool has some additional limitations of its own, apart from
-the memory model:
-
-1. Non-trivial data structures such as arrays or structures are
- not supported. However, pointers are supported, allowing trivial
- linked lists to be constructed.
-
-2. Dynamic memory allocation is not supported, although this can
- be worked around in some cases by supplying multiple statically
- allocated variables.
-
-Some of these limitations may be overcome in the future, but others are
-more likely to be addressed by incorporating the Linux-kernel memory model
-into other tools.
-
-Finally, please note that LKMM is subject to change as hardware, use cases,
-and compilers evolve.