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futex: update documentation for ordering guarantees
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Commits 11d4616 ("futex: revert back to the explicit waiter
counting code") and 69cd9eb ("futex: avoid race between requeue and
wake") changed some of the finer details of how we think about futexes.
One was a late fix and the other a consequence of overlooking the whole
requeuing logic.

The first change caused our documentation to be incorrect, and the
second made us aware that we need to explicitly add more details to it.

Signed-off-by: Davidlohr Bueso <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <[email protected]>
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Davidlohr Bueso authored and torvalds committed Apr 13, 2014
1 parent 454fd35 commit d7e8af1
Showing 1 changed file with 23 additions and 9 deletions.
32 changes: 23 additions & 9 deletions kernel/futex.c
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -70,7 +70,10 @@
#include "locking/rtmutex_common.h"

/*
* Basic futex operation and ordering guarantees:
* READ this before attempting to hack on futexes!
*
* Basic futex operation and ordering guarantees
* =============================================
*
* The waiter reads the futex value in user space and calls
* futex_wait(). This function computes the hash bucket and acquires
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -119,7 +122,7 @@
* sys_futex(WAIT, futex, val);
* futex_wait(futex, val);
*
* waiters++;
* waiters++; (a)
* mb(); (A) <-- paired with -.
* |
* lock(hash_bucket(futex)); |
Expand All @@ -135,14 +138,14 @@
* unlock(hash_bucket(futex));
* schedule(); if (waiters)
* lock(hash_bucket(futex));
* wake_waiters(futex);
* unlock(hash_bucket(futex));
* else wake_waiters(futex);
* waiters--; (b) unlock(hash_bucket(futex));
*
* Where (A) orders the waiters increment and the futex value read -- this
* is guaranteed by the head counter in the hb spinlock; and where (B)
* orders the write to futex and the waiters read -- this is done by the
* barriers in get_futex_key_refs(), through either ihold or atomic_inc,
* depending on the futex type.
* Where (A) orders the waiters increment and the futex value read through
* atomic operations (see hb_waiters_inc) and where (B) orders the write
* to futex and the waiters read -- this is done by the barriers in
* get_futex_key_refs(), through either ihold or atomic_inc, depending on the
* futex type.
*
* This yields the following case (where X:=waiters, Y:=futex):
*
Expand All @@ -155,6 +158,17 @@
* Which guarantees that x==0 && y==0 is impossible; which translates back into
* the guarantee that we cannot both miss the futex variable change and the
* enqueue.
*
* Note that a new waiter is accounted for in (a) even when it is possible that
* the wait call can return error, in which case we backtrack from it in (b).
* Refer to the comment in queue_lock().
*
* Similarly, in order to account for waiters being requeued on another
* address we always increment the waiters for the destination bucket before
* acquiring the lock. It then decrements them again after releasing it -
* the code that actually moves the futex(es) between hash buckets (requeue_futex)
* will do the additional required waiter count housekeeping. This is done for
* double_lock_hb() and double_unlock_hb(), respectively.
*/

#ifndef CONFIG_HAVE_FUTEX_CMPXCHG
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