diff options
| author | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> | 2026-08-30 09:22:00 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> | 2026-08-30 09:22:00 -0700 |
| commit | 034dd340b08be1f2f0477ad16131d609f9dbd53c (patch) | |
| tree | 2536f4b2d7893ccd916b5abdf3c454ad6edc03c2 /Documentation/locking/spinlocks.rst | |
| download | linux-stable-034dd340b08be1f2f0477ad16131d609f9dbd53c.tar.gz linux-stable-034dd340b08be1f2f0477ad16131d609f9dbd53c.zip | |
Merge tag 'trace-v7.3-2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/trace/linux-tracegrafted
Pull tracing fixes from Steven Rostedt:
- Fix error output of boot instance creation failure
Currently if a boot instance creation fails, instead of printing out
the name of the instance that failed, it prints "(null)". That is
because it prints "cur_str" that had already been processed by
strsep(). Print the saved name instead.
While at it, print the error code of the failure.
- Fix use-after-free for same named historgrams
Histograms can be named so that they can be used in multiple events.
But if the named histogram has a variable attached, the second event
that uses the named histogram which duplicates it and needs to free
the original after duplication leaves the old variable in place and
still visible. If another histogram uses than variable, it will use
the stale one which will try to reference the freed duplicate
histogram and crash the kernel.
Free the duplicate variables along with the duplicated histogram
data.
- Check return value of kthread_run() in event self test
The events self tests uses a kthread for testing but does not check
if it succeeded in creating a kthread. If the kthread creation were
to fail, the code will still try to call kthread_stop() on the error
returned.
- Fix race between reading trace_pipe and updating subbuffer size
If a user is reading the trace_pipe file at the same time they update
the ring buffer sub-buffer size, can cause the trace_pipe read to
read stale data. Add trace_access_lock() around updating the ring
buffer sub-buffer size.
- Fix eventfs_inode on failure path in creation of the events directory
In the creation of the "events" directory, if after allocating the
eventfs_inode a failure is detected, it calls cleanup_ei() which
calls free_ei(). The free_ei() will test if eventfs_inode being freed
has no children. It is a bug if it does. But on the failure case of
the creation of the "events" directory, the children lists have not
yet been initialized and the free will trigger a warning because
list_empty() on an uninitialized list returns false.
Move the initialization into init_ei() where it makes more sense and
makes sure that a created eventfs_inode has its lists initialized
upon creation.
- Check return value of kthread_run() in ftrace direct sample code
The sample code that shows how to use the ftrace direct calls does
not test the return of kthread_run() to see if it succeeds. Return a
failure if the kthread_run() doesn't succeed.
- Clear user events state on fork in case of alloc failure
On fork, the child gets a pointer to the parent's user events state.
It makes a copy of it then updates the child's pointer to it. But if
the allocation fails, the duplication function leaves the child with
a pointer to its parent's descriptor. When the child cleans up its
data, it will free the parent's descriptor while the parent is still
using it.
In the duplication function, set the child's user_event_mm to NULL
before testing if the allocation succeeded, and when it exits it will
not free the parent's descriptor.
- Fix retry exhaustion in simple ring buffer reader swap
simple_ring_buffer_swap_reader_page() starts with retry set to 8 and
post-decrements it only after a failed link replacement. On the final
attempt, a successful replacement leaves retry at zero, while a
failed replacement leaves it at -1.
But the check for success expects the retry value to be non-zero and
exits with an error on zero. This is the opposite result. Fix it.
- Fail nicely when the remote swap_reader_page() returns an error
Currently, if the swap_reader_page() of a remote buffer fails, it
triggers a WARN_ON_ONCE() and continues normally. Instead, have it
exit with an error and a pr_warn() print instead of a full WARNING.
* tag 'trace-v7.3-2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/trace/linux-trace:
ring-buffer: Stop remote reader update when page swap fails
tracing: Fix retry exhaustion in simple ring buffer reader swap
tracing/user_events: Clear copied tracing state before fork duplication
samples/ftrace: Fix kthread_stop() on ERR_PTR in ftrace-direct-multi-modify
samples/ftrace: Fix kthread_stop() on ERR_PTR in ftrace-direct-modify
eventfs: Initialize ei->children and ei->list in init_ei()
tracing: Fix use-after-free in trace_pipe read on sub-buffer order change
tracing: Fix crash passing ERR_PTR to kthread_stop()
tracing: Fix use-after-free with same-name named triggers
tracing: Fix logged instance name on creation failure
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/locking/spinlocks.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/locking/spinlocks.rst | 165 |
1 files changed, 165 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/locking/spinlocks.rst b/Documentation/locking/spinlocks.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..bec96f7a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/locking/spinlocks.rst @@ -0,0 +1,165 @@ +=============== +Locking lessons +=============== + +Lesson 1: Spin locks +==================== + +The most basic primitive for locking is spinlock:: + + static DEFINE_SPINLOCK(xxx_lock); + + unsigned long flags; + + spin_lock_irqsave(&xxx_lock, flags); + ... critical section here .. + spin_unlock_irqrestore(&xxx_lock, flags); + +The above is always safe. It will disable interrupts _locally_, but the +spinlock itself will guarantee the global lock, so it will guarantee that +there is only one thread-of-control within the region(s) protected by that +lock. This works well even under UP also, so the code does _not_ need to +worry about UP vs SMP issues: the spinlocks work correctly under both. + + NOTE! Implications of spin_locks for memory are further described in: + + Documentation/memory-barriers.txt + + (5) ACQUIRE operations. + + (6) RELEASE operations. + +The above is usually pretty simple (you usually need and want only one +spinlock for most things - using more than one spinlock can make things a +lot more complex and even slower and is usually worth it only for +sequences that you **know** need to be split up: avoid it at all cost if you +aren't sure). + +This is really the only really hard part about spinlocks: once you start +using spinlocks they tend to expand to areas you might not have noticed +before, because you have to make sure the spinlocks correctly protect the +shared data structures **everywhere** they are used. The spinlocks are most +easily added to places that are completely independent of other code (for +example, internal driver data structures that nobody else ever touches). + + NOTE! The spin-lock is safe only when you **also** use the lock itself + to do locking across CPU's, which implies that EVERYTHING that + touches a shared variable has to agree about the spinlock they want + to use. + +---- + +Lesson 2: reader-writer spinlocks. +================================== + +If your data accesses have a very natural pattern where you usually tend +to mostly read from the shared variables, the reader-writer locks +(rw_lock) versions of the spinlocks are sometimes useful. They allow multiple +readers to be in the same critical region at once, but if somebody wants +to change the variables it has to get an exclusive write lock. + + NOTE! reader-writer locks require more atomic memory operations than + simple spinlocks. Unless the reader critical section is long, you + are better off just using spinlocks. + +The routines look the same as above:: + + rwlock_t xxx_lock = __RW_LOCK_UNLOCKED(xxx_lock); + + unsigned long flags; + + read_lock_irqsave(&xxx_lock, flags); + .. critical section that only reads the info ... + read_unlock_irqrestore(&xxx_lock, flags); + + write_lock_irqsave(&xxx_lock, flags); + .. read and write exclusive access to the info ... + write_unlock_irqrestore(&xxx_lock, flags); + +The above kind of lock may be useful for complex data structures like +linked lists, especially searching for entries without changing the list +itself. The read lock allows many concurrent readers. Anything that +**changes** the list will have to get the write lock. + + NOTE! RCU is better for list traversal, but requires careful + attention to design detail (see Documentation/RCU/listRCU.rst). + +Also, you cannot "upgrade" a read-lock to a write-lock, so if you at _any_ +time need to do any changes (even if you don't do it every time), you have +to get the write-lock at the very beginning. + + NOTE! We are working hard to remove reader-writer spinlocks in most + cases, so please don't add a new one without consensus. (Instead, see + Documentation/RCU/rcu.rst for complete information.) + +---- + +Lesson 3: spinlocks revisited. +============================== + +The single spin-lock primitives above are by no means the only ones. They +are the most safe ones, and the ones that work under all circumstances, +but partly **because** they are safe they are also fairly slow. They are slower +than they'd need to be, because they do have to disable interrupts +(which is just a single instruction on a x86, but it's an expensive one - +and on other architectures it can be worse). + +If you have a case where you have to protect a data structure across +several CPU's and you want to use spinlocks you can potentially use +cheaper versions of the spinlocks. IFF you know that the spinlocks are +never used in interrupt handlers, you can use the non-irq versions:: + + spin_lock(&lock); + ... + spin_unlock(&lock); + +(and the equivalent read-write versions too, of course). The spinlock will +guarantee the same kind of exclusive access, and it will be much faster. +This is useful if you know that the data in question is only ever +manipulated from a "process context", ie no interrupts involved. + +The reasons you mustn't use these versions if you have interrupts that +play with the spinlock is that you can get deadlocks:: + + spin_lock(&lock); + ... + <- interrupt comes in: + spin_lock(&lock); + +where an interrupt tries to lock an already locked variable. This is ok if +the other interrupt happens on another CPU, but it is _not_ ok if the +interrupt happens on the same CPU that already holds the lock, because the +lock will obviously never be released (because the interrupt is waiting +for the lock, and the lock-holder is interrupted by the interrupt and will +not continue until the interrupt has been processed). + +(This is also the reason why the irq-versions of the spinlocks only need +to disable the _local_ interrupts - it's ok to use spinlocks in interrupts +on other CPU's, because an interrupt on another CPU doesn't interrupt the +CPU that holds the lock, so the lock-holder can continue and eventually +releases the lock). + + Linus + +---- + +Reference information: +====================== + +For dynamic initialization, use spin_lock_init() or rwlock_init() as +appropriate:: + + spinlock_t xxx_lock; + rwlock_t xxx_rw_lock; + + static int __init xxx_init(void) + { + spin_lock_init(&xxx_lock); + rwlock_init(&xxx_rw_lock); + ... + } + + module_init(xxx_init); + +For static initialization, use DEFINE_SPINLOCK() / DEFINE_RWLOCK() or +__SPIN_LOCK_UNLOCKED() / __RW_LOCK_UNLOCKED() as appropriate. |
