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| author | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> | 2026-09-13 12:27:00 -0700 |
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| committer | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> | 2026-09-13 12:27:00 -0700 |
| commit | 22098763a10d9c1340827fcf6edab66f153b27f0 (patch) | |
| tree | 3962f95a34df034652ff93686cdd156c7197f2d9 /Documentation/locking/spinlocks.rst | |
| download | linux-stable-22098763a10d9c1340827fcf6edab66f153b27f0.tar.gz linux-stable-22098763a10d9c1340827fcf6edab66f153b27f0.zip | |
Merge tag 'trace-v7.3-rc2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/trace/linux-tracegrafted
Pull tracing fixes from Steven Rostedt:
- Don't destroy user event fields when removal fails
User event fields are destroyed before the event is removed from
visibility. But that can fail leaving the still visible event with no
fields. Move the destroying of the fields to after the event is
successfully removed from visibility.
- Initialize function graph state is fork before calling
copy_exec_state()
For non-CLONE_VM forks, copy_exec_state() allocates a new
task_exec_state. If that allocation fails, ftrace_graph_exit_task()
will free the tasks ret_stack pointer. Since that pointer is still
using the parent's ret_stack, it mistakenly frees the parent's
pointer too.
Call ftrace_graph_init() on the task first which will NULL out the
new tasks's ret_stack and if the copy fails, it will not free
anything.
- Remove FGRAPH_MAX_INDEX
The macro FGRAPH_MAX_INDEX was added but never used. Remove it.
- Save ent_size in function graph printing of nested functions
The function graph tracer needs to look at the next event to see if
the next event is the return of the current function entry. If it is,
it prints a single line:
ktime_get();
Otherwise it prints it like a nested function:
tick_nohz_irq_exit() {
ktime_get();
kcpustat_irq_exit();
}
In order to look at the next event, it must save the current event so
that it has the information to print from it. It saves the event in
the iterator descriptor called "ent". What it doesn't save is the
ent_size of the event which is now used to know if the function graph
arguments are to be printed. The peek doesn't save the size so the
size used happens to be that of the size of the last event that was
seen.
Save the entry event size in the iterator descriptor so that the
correct size is used.
- Fix several errors with freeing data in the histogram code
The histogram code had a lot of leaked or or incorrect accounting
when failures happen. Correct them.
- Fix histogram regression of .percent and .graph modifiers
Up until 6.3 histogram values could have "percent" or "graph"
modifiers that changed how they were printed. But a change that added
restricting histograms values from being strings, stack traces and
other modifiers inadvertently prevented them from using the percent
and graph modifiers, which were legal use cases for values.
Put back the percent and graph modifiers.
- Fix various typos in the comments
- Set the trace_clock before initializing a histogram with clock
argument
The histogram API allows the user to specific which trace clock to
use via a "clock=" string. The histogram is set up first before the
clock is checked. If the passed in clock is not valid, it exits
without fully fixing up the histogram leaving it on the list and a
use-after-free can trigger.
Update the clock argument first and if it fails then exit gracefully
before the histogram trigger is placed on any lists.
- Restore :mod: trailer after parsing in ftrace_set_clr_event
The function ftrace_set_clr_event() modifies the parse string and
needs to put it back to what was passed in. It searches for ":mod:"
via a strsep() but fails to put back the first ':' in the string.
Add back the ':' in the passed in string.
- Take trace_array reference when opening a tracer options file
The options files are dynamically created and some tracers add their
own options. When a tracer adds their own list of options, the
trace_array holding them has an array to hold the list of options for
each tracer. This array increases in size via a krealloc(), and the
new entry gets a newly allocated array to hold the options of the new
tracer being added.
The element in each entry of the tracer's option array holds a
pointer back to the trace_array, a pointer to the tracer it is
associated to, a pointer to the flags of the option.
The issue is that these arrays are freed when the trace_array is
freed when its instance it represents is removed from the instances
directory. There's a race that an open of one of these options files
can happen when the instance is being removed.
Add a new helper function to be called by the open function of the
options file to iterate all existing trace_arrays under a lock and
find the one that has the given option element in one of it's tracer
arrays. If found, then update the associated trace_array's reference
counter to keep it from being freed. If not found, have the open call
return -ENODEV.
- Disable interrupts when acquiring the lock in rb_wake_up_waiters()
The function rb_wake_up_waiters() assumes it will be called in
interrupt context and does not disable irqs when taking
cpu_buffer->reader_lock, which can be called in hard interrupt
context. The issue is in PREEMPT_RT, this function is called in
thread context leaving this lock open to a deadlock.
Take the lock with interrupts disabled.
- Use rcu_assign_pointer() for tmp_ops filter hash
The tmp_ops used in update_ftrace_direct_mod() assigns its
filter_hash field directly, but that field is annotated as __rcu and
sparse complains. Assign it with rcu_assign_pointer()
- Fix use-after-free in enable_trigger_private_data_free()
The trace_event_call is accessed through the event_trigger_data's
trace_event_file pointer to put the trace_event_call on freeing. The
issue is that the trace_event_file data may have been freed already
causing a use-after-free. Add a field to the event_trigger_data that
points directly to the trace_event_call so that it can decrement its
reference directly without needing to go through the
trace_event_file.
- Fix accounting of buffer data remote headers
trace_buffer_desc_size() and trace_remote_alloc_buffer() undercount
the number of pages is needed for the asked for size as it doesn't
take into account the meta data on each page. Add a helper function
to do the calculation properly and use that in these functions.
- Catch nr_page_va overflow in ring_buffer_desc sizing
The number of pages per remote ring buffer is capped by
ring_buffer_desc::nr_page_va (32 bits). A buffer_size large enough to
overflow that field would silently allocate a descriptor smaller than
what was asked for.
- Do not resize the subbuf order if any per_cpu buffer is disabled
The mmapping of ring buffers disables resizing the subbuffers, but it
is done per-cpu whereas the subbuf size change is done for all the
per_cpu buffers under the buffer->mutex. It could change the size of
some while the mapping is happening on others. Have the resize of the
subbuf order check all the per_cpu buffers under the lock to see if
any of them is disabled before starting and causing an inconsistency
between buffers that are being mapped.
* tag 'trace-v7.3-rc2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/trace/linux-trace: (25 commits)
ring-buffer: Check resize_disabled before publishing the new subbuf order
tracing/remotes: Catch nr_page_va overflow in ring_buffer_desc sizing
tracing/remotes: Account for ring buffer page header in size calculation
tracing: Don't dereference trace_event_file in deferred trigger free
ftrace: Use rcu_assign_pointer() for tmp_ops filter hash
ring-buffer: Acquire the lock with irqsave in rb_wake_up_waiters()
tracing: Take trace_array reference when opening a tracer options file
tracing: Fix ring_buffer_read_page_size() kernel-doc
tracing: Restore :mod: trailer after parsing in ftrace_set_clr_event()
tracing: Fix memory corruption from a "STACKTRACE" histogram key
tracing: Fix memory corruption from the histogram stacktrace modifier
tracing: Undo the registration when enabling the histogram trigger fails
tracing: Take the reference before publishing the named histogram trigger
tracing: Set the trace clock before registering the histogram trigger
tracing: Fix typo "preceeded" in comment
tracing: Fix typo "availabe" in comment
tracing: Let histogram values keep the percent and graph modifiers
tracing: Keep the entry count when the histogram stats allocation fails
tracing: Free histogram the field rejected for a bad modifier
tracing: Free histogram the var ref when its initialization fails
...
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. |
