+++ /dev/null
-Userspace RCU Implementation
-by Mathieu Desnoyers and Paul E. McKenney
-
-BUILDING
---------
-
- ./bootstrap (skip if using tarball)
- ./configure
- make
- make install
- ldconfig
-
- Hints: Forcing 32-bit build:
- * CFLAGS="-m32 -g -O2" ./configure
-
- Forcing 64-bit build:
- * CFLAGS="-m64 -g -O2" ./configure
-
- Forcing a 32-bit build with 386 backward compatibility:
- * CFLAGS="-m32 -g -O2" ./configure --host=i386-pc-linux-gnu
-
- Forcing a 32-bit build for Sparcv9 (typical for Sparc v9)
- * CFLAGS="-m32 -Wa,-Av9a -g -O2" ./configure
-
-
-ARCHITECTURES SUPPORTED
------------------------
-
-Currently, Linux x86 (i386, i486, i586, i686), x86 64-bit, PowerPC 32/64,
-S390, S390x, ARM 32/64, MIPS, Alpha, ia64, Sparcv9 32/64, Tilera, and
-hppa/PA-RISC are supported.
-Tested on Linux, FreeBSD 8.2/8.3/9.0/9.1/10.0 i386/amd64, and Cygwin.
-Should also work on: Android, NetBSD 5, OpenBSD, Darwin (more testing
-needed before claiming support for these OS).
-
-Linux ARM depends on running a Linux kernel 2.6.15 or better, GCC 4.4 or
-better.
-
-The gcc compiler versions 3.3, 3.4, 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5 are
-supported, with the following exceptions:
-
-- gcc 3.3 and 3.4 have a bug that prevents them from generating volatile
- accesses to offsets in a TLS structure on 32-bit x86. These versions are
- therefore not compatible with liburcu on x86 32-bit (i386, i486, i586, i686).
- The problem has been reported to the gcc community:
- http://www.mail-archive.com/gcc-bugs@gcc.gnu.org/msg281255.html
-- gcc 3.3 cannot match the "xchg" instruction on 32-bit x86 build.
- See: http://kerneltrap.org/node/7507
-- Alpha, ia64 and ARM architectures depend on gcc 4.x with atomic builtins
- support. For ARM this was introduced with gcc 4.4:
- http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.4/changes.html
-
-Clang version 3.0 (based on LLVM 3.0) is supported.
-
-Building on MacOS X (Darwin) requires a work-around for processor
-detection:
- # 32-bit
- ./configure --build=i686-apple-darwin11
- # 64-bit
- ./configure --build=x86_64-apple-darwin11
-
-For developers using the git tree:
-
-This source tree is based on the autotools suite from GNU to simplify
-portability. Here are some things you should have on your system in order to
-compile the git repository tree :
-
-- GNU autotools (automake >=1.10, autoconf >=2.50, autoheader >=2.50)
- (make sure your system wide "automake" points to a recent version!)
-- GNU Libtool >=2.2
- (for more information, go to http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/)
-
-If you get the tree from the repository, you will need to use the "bootstrap"
-script in the root of the tree. It calls all the GNU tools needed to prepare the
-tree configuration.
-
-Test scripts provided in the tests/ directory of the source tree depend
-on "bash" and the "seq" program.
-
-
-API
----
-
-See the relevant API documentation files in doc/. The APIs provided by
-Userspace RCU are, by prefix:
-
-- rcu_ : Read-Copy Update (see doc/rcu-api.txt)
-- cmm_ : Concurrent Memory Model
-- caa_ : Concurrent Architecture Abstraction
-- cds_ : Concurrent Data Structures (see doc/cds-api.txt)
-- uatomic_: Userspace Atomic (see doc/uatomic-api.txt)
-
-
-QUICK START GUIDE
------------------
-
-Usage of all urcu libraries
-
- * Define _LGPL_SOURCE (only) if your code is LGPL or GPL compatible
- before including the urcu.h or urcu-qsbr.h header. If your application
- is distributed under another license, function calls will be generated
- instead of inlines, so your application can link with the library.
- * Linking with one of the libraries below is always necessary even for
- LGPL and GPL applications.
- * Define URCU_INLINE_SMALL_FUNCTIONS before including Userspace RCU
- headers if you want Userspace RCU to inline small functions (10
- lines or less) into the application. It can be used by applications
- distributed under any kind of license, and does *not* make the
- application a derived work of Userspace RCU.
-
- Those small inlined functions are guaranteed to match the library
- content as long as the library major version is unchanged.
- Therefore, the application *must* be compiled with headers matching
- the library major version number. Applications using
- URCU_INLINE_SMALL_FUNCTIONS may be unable to use debugging
- features of Userspace RCU without being recompiled.
-
-
-Usage of liburcu
-
- * #include <urcu.h>
- * Link the application with "-lurcu".
- * This is the preferred version of the library, in terms of
- grace-period detection speed, read-side speed and flexibility.
- Dynamically detects kernel support for sys_membarrier(). Falls back
- on urcu-mb scheme if support is not present, which has slower
- read-side.
-
-Usage of liburcu-qsbr
-
- * #include <urcu-qsbr.h>
- * Link with "-lurcu-qsbr".
- * The QSBR flavor of RCU needs to have each reader thread executing
- rcu_quiescent_state() periodically to progress. rcu_thread_online()
- and rcu_thread_offline() can be used to mark long periods for which
- the threads are not active. It provides the fastest read-side at the
- expense of more intrusiveness in the application code.
-
-Usage of liburcu-mb
-
- * #include <urcu.h>
- * Compile any _LGPL_SOURCE code using this library with "-DRCU_MB".
- * Link with "-lurcu-mb".
- * This version of the urcu library uses memory barriers on the writer
- and reader sides. This results in faster grace-period detection, but
- results in slower reads.
-
-Usage of liburcu-signal
-
- * #include <urcu.h>
- * Compile any _LGPL_SOURCE code using this library with "-DRCU_SIGNAL".
- * Link the application with "-lurcu-signal".
- * Version of the library that requires a signal, typically SIGUSR1. Can
- be overridden with -DSIGRCU by modifying Makefile.build.inc.
-
-Usage of liburcu-bp
-
- * #include <urcu-bp.h>
- * Link with "-lurcu-bp".
- * The BP library flavor stands for "bulletproof". It is specifically
- designed to help tracing library to hook on applications without
- requiring to modify these applications. rcu_init(),
- rcu_register_thread() and rcu_unregister_thread() all become nops.
- The state is dealt with by the library internally at the expense of
- read-side and write-side performance.
-
-Initialization
-
- Each thread that has reader critical sections (that uses
- rcu_read_lock()/rcu_read_unlock() must first register to the URCU
- library. This is done by calling rcu_register_thread(). Unregistration
- must be performed before exiting the thread by using
- rcu_unregister_thread().
-
-Reading
-
- Reader critical sections must be protected by locating them between
- calls to rcu_read_lock() and rcu_read_unlock(). Inside that lock,
- rcu_dereference() may be called to read an RCU protected pointer.
-
-Writing
-
- rcu_assign_pointer() and rcu_xchg_pointer() may be called anywhere.
- After, synchronize_rcu() must be called. When it returns, the old
- values are not in usage anymore.
-
-Usage of liburcu-defer
-
- * Follow instructions for either liburcu, liburcu-qsbr,
- liburcu-mb, liburcu-signal, or liburcu-bp above.
- The liburcu-defer functionality is pulled into each of
- those library modules.
- * Provides defer_rcu() primitive to enqueue delayed callbacks. Queued
- callbacks are executed in batch periodically after a grace period.
- Do _not_ use defer_rcu() within a read-side critical section, because
- it may call synchronize_rcu() if the thread queue is full.
- This can lead to deadlock or worse.
- * Requires that rcu_defer_barrier() must be called in library destructor
- if a library queues callbacks and is expected to be unloaded with
- dlclose().
- * Its API is currently experimental. It may change in future library
- releases.
-
-Usage of urcu-call-rcu
-
- * Follow instructions for either liburcu, liburcu-qsbr,
- liburcu-mb, liburcu-signal, or liburcu-bp above.
- The urcu-call-rcu functionality is provided for each of
- these library modules.
- * Provides the call_rcu() primitive to enqueue delayed callbacks
- in a manner similar to defer_rcu(), but without ever delaying
- for a grace period. On the other hand, call_rcu()'s best-case
- overhead is not quite as good as that of defer_rcu().
- * Provides call_rcu() to allow asynchronous handling of RCU
- grace periods. A number of additional functions are provided
- to manage the helper threads used by call_rcu(), but reasonable
- defaults are used if these additional functions are not invoked.
- See rcu-api.txt in userspace-rcu documentation for more details.
-
-Being careful with signals
-
- The liburcu library uses signals internally. The signal handler is
- registered with the SA_RESTART flag. However, these signals may cause
- some non-restartable system calls to fail with errno = EINTR. Care
- should be taken to restart system calls manually if they fail with this
- error. A list of non-restartable system calls may be found in
- signal(7). The liburcu-mb and liburcu-qsbr versions of the Userspace RCU
- library do not require any signal.
-
- Read-side critical sections are allowed in a signal handler,
- except those setup with sigaltstack(2), with liburcu and
- liburcu-mb. Be careful, however, to disable these signals
- between thread creation and calls to rcu_register_thread(), because a
- signal handler nesting on an unregistered thread would not be
- allowed to call rcu_read_lock().
-
- Read-side critical sections are _not_ allowed in a signal handler with
- liburcu-qsbr, unless signals are disabled explicitly around each
- rcu_quiescent_state() calls, when threads are put offline and around
- calls to synchronize_rcu(). Even then, we do not recommend it.
-
-Interaction with mutexes
-
- One must be careful to do not cause deadlocks due to interaction of
- synchronize_rcu() and RCU read-side with mutexes. If synchronize_rcu()
- is called with a mutex held, this mutex (or any mutex which has this
- mutex in its dependency chain) should not be acquired from within a RCU
- read-side critical section.
-
- This is especially important to understand in the context of the
- QSBR flavor: a registered reader thread being "online" by
- default should be considered as within a RCU read-side critical
- section unless explicitly put "offline". Therefore, if
- synchronize_rcu() is called with a mutex held, this mutex, as
- well as any mutex which has this mutex in its dependency chain
- should only be taken when the RCU reader thread is "offline"
- (this can be performed by calling rcu_thread_offline()).
-
-Interaction with fork()
-
- Special care must be taken for applications performing fork() without
- any following exec(). This is caused by the fact that Linux only clones
- the thread calling fork(), and thus never replicates any of the other
- parent thread into the child process. Most liburcu implementations
- require that all registrations (as reader, defer_rcu and call_rcu
- threads) should be released before a fork() is performed, except for the
- rather common scenario where fork() is immediately followed by exec() in
- the child process. The only implementation not subject to that rule is
- liburcu-bp, which is designed to handle fork() by calling
- rcu_bp_before_fork, rcu_bp_after_fork_parent and
- rcu_bp_after_fork_child.
-
- Applications that use call_rcu() and that fork() without
- doing an immediate exec() must take special action. The parent
- must invoke call_rcu_before_fork() before the fork() and
- call_rcu_after_fork_parent() after the fork(). The child
- process must invoke call_rcu_after_fork_child().
- Even though these three APIs are suitable for passing to
- pthread_atfork(), use of pthread_atfork() is *STRONGLY
- DISCOURAGED* for programs calling the glibc memory allocator
- (malloc(), calloc(), free(), ...) within call_rcu callbacks.
- This is due to limitations in the way glibc memory allocator
- handles calls to the memory allocator from concurrent threads
- while the pthread_atfork() handlers are executing.
- Combining e.g.:
- * call to free() from callbacks executed within call_rcu worker
- threads,
- * executing call_rcu atfork handlers within the glibc pthread
- atfork mechanism,
- will sometimes trigger interesting process hangs. This usually
- hangs on a memory allocator lock within glibc.
-
-Thread Local Storage (TLS)
-
- Userspace RCU can fall back on pthread_getspecific() to emulate
- TLS variables on systems where it is not available. This behavior
- can be forced by specifying --disable-compiler-tls as configure
- argument.
-
-Usage of DEBUG_RCU
-
- DEBUG_RCU is used to add internal debugging self-checks to the
- RCU library. This define adds a performance penalty when enabled.
- Can be enabled by uncommenting the corresponding line in
- Makefile.build.inc.
-
-Usage of DEBUG_YIELD
-
- DEBUG_YIELD is used to add random delays in the code for testing
- purposes.
-
-SMP support
-
- By default the library is configured to use synchronization primitives
- adequate for SMP systems. On uniprocessor systems, support for SMP
- systems can be disabled with:
-
- ./configure --disable-smp-support
-
- theoretically yielding slightly better performance.
-
-MAKE TARGETS
-------------
-
-In addition to the usual "make check" target, Userspace RCU features
-"make regtest" and "make bench" targets.
-
-make check: Short tests, meant to be run when rebuilding or porting
- Userspace RCU.
-
-make regtest: Long (many hours) test, meant to be run when modifying
- Userspace RCU or porting it to a new architecture or
- operating system.
-
-make bench: Long (many hours) benchmarks.
-
-CONTACTS
---------
-
-You can contact the maintainers on the following mailing list:
-lttng-dev@lists.lttng.org
projects / urcu.git / blobdiff