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Date:   Mon, 12 Nov 2018 08:01:37 -0800
From:   "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@linux.ibm.com>
To:     Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com>
Cc:     linux-kernel <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>,
        Lai Jiangshan <jiangshanlai@gmail.com>,
        dipankar <dipankar@in.ibm.com>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
        Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
        rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>,
        David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>,
        Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>,
        fweisbec <fweisbec@gmail.com>, Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>,
        "Joel Fernandes, Google" <joel@joelfernandes.org>,
        kernel-team <kernel-team@android.com>, sashal@kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH tip/core/rcu 0/41] More RCU flavor consolidation cleanup
 for v4.21/v5.0
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On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 09:07:50AM -0500, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> ----- On Nov 11, 2018, at 2:41 PM, paulmck paulmck@linux.ibm.com wrote:
> 
> > Hello!
> > 
> > This series does additional cleanup for the RCU flavor consolidation,
> > focusing primarily on uses of old API members, for example, so that
> > call_rcu_bh() becomes call_rcu().  There are also a few straggling
> > internal-to-RCU cleanups.
> > 
> > 1.	Remove unused rcu_state externs, courtesy of Joel Fernandes.
> > 
> > 2.	Fix rcu_{node,data} comments about gp_seq_needed, courtesy of
> >	Joel Fernandes.
> > 
> > 3.	Eliminate synchronize_rcu_mult() and its sole caller.
> > 
> > 4.	Consolidate the RCU update functions invoked by sync.c.
> > 
> > 5-41.	Replace old flavorful RCU API calls with the corresponding
> >	vanilla calls.
> 
> Hi Paul,
> 
> Just a heads up: we might want to spell out warnings in very big letters
> for anyone trying to backport code using RCU from post-4.21 kernels
> back to older kernels. I fear that newer code will build just fine
> on older kernels, but will spectacularly fail in hard-to-debug ways at
> runtime.
> 
> Renaming synchronize_rcu() and call_rcu() to something that did not
> exist in prior kernels would prevent that. It may not be as pretty
> though.

From v4.20 rather than v4.21, but yes.  Would it make sense to have Sasha
automatically flag -stable candidates going back past that boundary that
contain call_rcu(), synchronize_rcu(), etc.?  Adding Sasha on CC, and
I might be able to touch base with him this week.

							Thanx, Paul