Re: [PATCH RFC LKMM 1/7] tools/memory-model: Add extra ordering for locks and remove it for ordinary release/acquire

[Andrea Parri <andrea.parri@amarulasolutions.com>]

> The updated Changelog draft is below.
> 
> Alan.
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> More than one kernel developer has expressed the opinion that the LKMM
> should enforce ordering of writes by locking.  In other words, given
> the following code:
> 
> 	WRITE_ONCE(x, 1);
> 	spin_unlock(&s):
> 	spin_lock(&s);
> 	WRITE_ONCE(y, 1);
> 
> the stores to x and y should be propagated in order to all other CPUs,
> even though those other CPUs might not access the lock s.  In terms of
> the memory model, this means expanding the cumul-fence relation.
> 
> Locks should also provide read-read (and read-write) ordering in a
> similar way.  Given:
> 
> 	READ_ONCE(x);
> 	spin_unlock(&s);
> 	spin_lock(&s);
> 	READ_ONCE(y);		// or WRITE_ONCE(y, 1);
> 
> the load of x should be executed before the load of (or store to) y.
> The LKMM already provides this ordering, but it provides it even in
> the case where the two accesses are separated by a release/acquire
> pair of fences rather than unlock/lock.  This would prevent
> architectures from using weakly ordered implementations of release and
> acquire, which seems like an unnecessary restriction.  The patch
> therefore removes the ordering requirement from the LKMM for that
> case.
> 
> There are several arguments both for and against this change.  Let us
> refer to these enhanced ordering properties by saying that the LKMM
> would require locks to be RCtso (a bit of a misnomer, but analogous to
> RCpc and RCsc) and it would require ordinary acquire/release only to
> be RCpc.  (Note: In the following, the phrase "all supported
> architectures" is meant not to include RISC-V.  Although RISC-V is
> indeed supported by the kernel, the implementation is still somewhat
> in a state of flux and therefore statements about it would be
> premature.)
> 
> Pros:
> 
> 	The kernel already provides RCtso ordering for locks on all
> 	supported architectures, even though this is not stated
> 	explicitly anywhere.  Therefore the LKMM should formalize it.
> 
> 	In theory, guaranteeing RCtso ordering would reduce the need
> 	for additional barrier-like constructs meant to increase the
> 	ordering strength of locks.
> 
> 	Will Deacon and Peter Zijlstra are strongly in favor of
> 	formalizing the RCtso requirement.  Linus Torvalds and Peter
> 	would like to go even further, requiring locks to have RCsc
> 	behavior (ordering preceding writes against later reads), but
> 	they recognize that this would incur a noticeable performance
> 	degradation on the POWER architecture.  Linus also points out
> 	that people have made the mistake, in the past, of assuming
> 	that locking has stronger ordering properties than is
> 	currently guaranteed, and this change would reduce the
> 	likelihood of such mistakes.
> 
> 	Not requiring ordinary acquire/release to be any stronger than
> 	RCpc may prove advantageous for future architectures, allowing
> 	them to implement smp_load_acquire() and smp_store_release()
> 	with more efficient machine instructions than would be
> 	possible if the operations had to be RCtso.  Will and Linus
> 	approve this rationale, hypothetical though it is at the
> 	moment (it may end up affecting the RISC-V implementation).
> 	The same argument may or may not apply to RMW-acquire/release;
> 	see also the second Con entry below.
> 
> 	Linus feels that locks should be easy for people to use
> 	without worrying about memory consistency issues, since they
> 	are so pervasive in the kernel, whereas acquire/release is
> 	much more of an "experts only" tool.  Requiring locks to be
> 	RCtso is a step in this direction.
> 
> Cons:
> 
> 	Andrea Parri and Luc Maranget think that locks should have the
> 	same ordering properties as ordinary acquire/release (indeed,
> 	Luc points out that the names "acquire" and "release" derive
> 	from the usage of locks).  Andrea points out that having
> 	different ordering properties for different forms of acquires
> 	and releases is not only unnecessary, it would also be
> 	confusing and unmaintainable.
> 
> 	Locks are constructed from lower-level primitives, typically
> 	RMW-acquire (for locking) and ordinary release (for unlock).
> 	It is illogical to require stronger ordering properties from
> 	the high-level operations than from the low-level operations
> 	they comprise.  Thus, this change would make
> 
> 		while (cmpxchg_acquire(&s, 0, 1) != 0)
> 			cpu_relax();
> 
> 	an incorrect implementation of spin_lock(&s) as far as the
> 	LKMM is concerned.  In theory this weakness can be ameliorated
> 	by changing the LKMM even further, requiring
> 	RMW-acquire/release also to be RCtso (which it already is on
> 	all supported architectures).
> 
> 	As far as I know, nobody has singled out any examples of code
> 	in the kernel that actually relies on locks being RCtso.
> 	(People mumble about RCU and the scheduler, but nobody has
> 	pointed to any actual code.  If there are any real cases,
> 	their number is likely quite small.)  If RCtso ordering is not
> 	needed, why require it?
> 
> 	A handful of locking constructs (qspinlocks, qrwlocks, and
> 	mcs_spinlocks) are built on top of smp_cond_load_acquire()
> 	instead of an RMW-acquire instruction.  It currently provides
> 	only the ordinary acquire semantics, not the stronger ordering
> 	this patch would require of locks.  In theory this could be
> 	ameliorated by requiring smp_cond_load_acquire() in
> 	combination with ordinary release also to be RCtso (which is
> 	currently true on all supported architectures).
> 
> 	On future weakly ordered architectures, people may be able to
> 	implement locks in a non-RCtso fashion with significant
> 	performance improvement.  Meeting the RCtso requirement would
> 	necessarily add run-time overhead.
> 
> Overall, the technical aspects of these arguments seem relatively
> minor, and it appears mostly to boil down to a matter of opinion.
> Since the opinions of senior kernel maintainers such as Linus,
> Peter, and Will carry more weight than those of Luc and Andrea, this
> patch changes the model in accordance with the maintainers' wishes.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Alan Stern <stern@rowland.harvard.edu>

Thank you for integrating the log.

I remain more sensitive to those Cons (and skeptical about that
po-unlock-rf-lock-po), but: (1) this doesn't make an objection,
and (2) you wore me down. ;-)

So unless new arguments are brought to light, feel free to add:

Reviewed-by: Andrea Parri <andrea.parri@amarulasolutions.com>

  Andrea


> 
> v.5: Incorporated feedback from Andrea regarding the updated Changelog.
> 
> v.4: Added pros and cons discussion to the Changelog.
> 
> v.3: Rebased against the dev branch of Paul's linux-rcu tree.
> Changed unlock-rf-lock-po to po-unlock-rf-lock-po, making it more
> symmetrical and more in accordance with the use of fence.tso for
> the release on RISC-V.
> 
> v.2: Restrict the ordering to lock operations, not general release
> and acquire fences.
>