Since the futex_q can dissapear the instruction after assigning NULL, this really should be a RELEASE barrier. That stops loads from hitting dead memory too. Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) --- kernel/futex.c | 3 +-- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 2 deletions(-) --- a/kernel/futex.c +++ b/kernel/futex.c @@ -1288,8 +1288,7 @@ static void mark_wake_futex(struct wake_ * memory barrier is required here to prevent the following * store to lock_ptr from getting ahead of the plist_del. */ - smp_wmb(); - q->lock_ptr = NULL; + smp_store_release(&q->lock_ptr, NULL); } static int wake_futex_pi(u32 __user *uaddr, u32 uval, struct futex_q *top_waiter,