Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756073AbbFBIuW (ORCPT ); Tue, 2 Jun 2015 04:50:22 -0400 Received: from resqmta-ch2-01v.sys.comcast.net ([69.252.207.33]:55112 "EHLO resqmta-ch2-01v.sys.comcast.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754096AbbFBIti (ORCPT ); Tue, 2 Jun 2015 04:49:38 -0400 X-Greylist: delayed 491 seconds by postgrey-1.27 at vger.kernel.org; Tue, 02 Jun 2015 04:49:38 EDT Message-ID: <556D6C31.3070500@gentoo.org> Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 04:41:21 -0400 From: Joshua Kinard User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.7.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Leonid Yegoshin , linux-mips@linux-mips.org, will.deacon@arm.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, ralf@linux-mips.org CC: benh@kernel.crashing.org, markos.chandras@imgtec.com, macro@linux-mips.org, Steven.Hill@imgtec.com, alexander.h.duyck@redhat.com, davem@davemloft.net Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/3] MIPS: SMP memory barriers: lightweight sync, acquire-release References: <20150602000818.6668.76632.stgit@ubuntu-yegoshin> In-Reply-To: <20150602000818.6668.76632.stgit@ubuntu-yegoshin> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2727 Lines: 47 On 06/01/2015 20:09, Leonid Yegoshin wrote: > The following series implements lightweight SYNC memory barriers for SMP Linux > and a correct use of SYNCs around atomics, futexes, spinlocks etc LL-SC loops - > the basic building blocks of any atomics in MIPS. > > Historically, a generic MIPS doesn't use memory barriers around LL-SC loops in > atomics, spinlocks etc. However, Architecture documents never specify that LL-SC > loop creates a memory barrier. Some non-generic MIPS vendors already feel > the pain and enforces it. With introduction in a recent out-of-order superscalar > MIPS processors an aggressive speculative memory read it is a problem now. > > The generic MIPS memory barrier instruction SYNC (aka SYNC 0) is something > very heavvy because it was designed for propogating barrier down to memory. > MIPS R2 introduced lightweight SYNC instructions which correspond to smp_*() > set of SMP barriers. The description was very HW-specific and it was never > used, however, it is much less trouble for processor pipelines and can be used > in smp_mb()/smp_rmb()/smp_wmb() as is as in acquire/release barrier semantics. > After prolonged discussions with HW team it became clear that lightweight SYNCs > were designed specifically with smp_*() in mind but description is in timeline > ordering space. > > So, the problem was spotted recently in engineering tests and it was confirmed > with tests that without memory barrier load and store may pass LL/SC > instructions in both directions, even in old MIPS R2 processors. > Aggressive speculation in MIPS R6 and MIPS I5600 processors adds more fire to > this issue. > > 3 patches introduces a configurable control for lightweight SYNCs around LL/SC > loops and for MIPS32 R2 it was allowed to choose an enforcing SYNCs or not > (keep as is) because some old MIPS32 R2 may be happy without that SYNCs. > In MIPS R6 I chose to have SYNC around LL/SC mandatory because all of that > processors have an agressive speculation and delayed write buffers. In that > processors series it is still possible the use of SYNC 0 instead of > lightweight SYNCs in configuration - just in case of some trouble in > implementation in specific CPU. However, it is considered safe do not implement > some or any lightweight SYNC in specific core because Architecture requires > HW map of unimplemented SYNCs to SYNC 0. How useful might this be for older hardware, such as the R10k CPUs? Just fallbacks to the old sync insn? --J -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/