From: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@polymtl.ca>
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:29:21 +0000 (-0400)
Subject: urcu-defer: ensure callbacks will never be enqueued forever
X-Git-Tag: v0.1~41
X-Git-Url: https://git.liburcu.org/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=04eb9c4f11a43e4cd7307d319b2d5f7624cd2801;hp=04eb9c4f11a43e4cd7307d319b2d5f7624cd2801;p=urcu.git

urcu-defer: ensure callbacks will never be enqueued forever

Even if there are no further callbacks enqueued, ensure that after a 100ms
delay, the callback queue will be dealt with.

Required proper ordering of queue vs futex.

e.g.

 The idea is to perform the "check for empty queue" between the
&defer_thread_futex decrement and the test in wait_defer. It skips the
futex call and proceed if the list is non-empty.

As I am drilling into the problem, it looks very much like an attempt to
implement efficient wait queues in userspace based on sys_futex().

/*
 * Wake-up any waiting defer thread. Called from many concurrent
 * threads.
 */
static void wake_up_defer(void)
{
        if (unlikely(atomic_read(&defer_thread_futex) == -1)) {
                atomic_set(&defer_thread_futex, 0);
                futex(&defer_thread_futex, FUTEX_WAKE, 0,
                      NULL, NULL, 0);
        }
}

/*
 * Defer thread waiting. Single thread.
 */
static void wait_defer(void)
{
        atomic_dec(&defer_thread_futex);
        smp_mb();       /* Write futex before read queue */
        if (rcu_defer_num_callbacks()) {
                smp_mb();       /* Read queue before write futex */
                /* Callbacks are queued, don't wait. */
                atomic_set(&defer_thread_futex, 0);
        } else {
                smp_rmb();      /* Read queue before read futex */
                if (atomic_read(&defer_thread_futex) == -1)
                        futex(&defer_thread_futex, FUTEX_WAIT, -1,
                              NULL, NULL, 0);
        }
}

- call_rcu():
  * queue callbacks to perform
  * smp_mb()
  * wake_up_defer()

- defer thread:
  * for (;;)
    * wait_defer()
    * sleep 100ms (wait for more callbacks to be enqueued)
    * dequeue callbacks, execute them

The goal here is that if call_rcu() enqueues a callback (even if it
races with defer thread going to sleep), there should not be a
potentially infinite delay before it gets executed. Therefore, being
blocked in sys_futex while there is a callback to execute, without any
hope to be woken up unless another callback is queued, would not meet
that design requirement. I think that checking the number of queued
callbacks within wait_defer() as I propose here should address this
situation.

Signed-off-by: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@polymtl.ca>
---