Refer to ptr_eq() in the rcu_dereference() documentation. ptr_eq() is a mechanism that preserves address dependencies when comparing pointers, and should be favored when comparing a pointer obtained from rcu_dereference() against another pointer.
Signed-off-by: Mathieu Desnoyers <[email protected]> Acked-by: Alan Stern <[email protected]> Acked-by: Paul E. McKenney <[email protected]> Reviewed-by: Joel Fernandes (Google) <[email protected]> Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <[email protected]> Cc: Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <[email protected]> Cc: "Paul E. McKenney" <[email protected]> Cc: Will Deacon <[email protected]> Cc: Peter Zijlstra <[email protected]> Cc: Boqun Feng <[email protected]> Cc: Alan Stern <[email protected]> Cc: John Stultz <[email protected]> Cc: Neeraj Upadhyay <[email protected]> Cc: Linus Torvalds <[email protected]> Cc: Boqun Feng <[email protected]> Cc: Frederic Weisbecker <[email protected]> Cc: Joel Fernandes <[email protected]> Cc: Josh Triplett <[email protected]> Cc: Uladzislau Rezki <[email protected]> Cc: Steven Rostedt <[email protected]> Cc: Lai Jiangshan <[email protected]> Cc: Zqiang <[email protected]> Cc: Ingo Molnar <[email protected]> Cc: Waiman Long <[email protected]> Cc: Mark Rutland <[email protected]> Cc: Thomas Gleixner <[email protected]> Cc: Vlastimil Babka <[email protected]> Cc: [email protected] Cc: Mateusz Guzik <[email protected]> Cc: Gary Guo <[email protected]> Cc: Jonas Oberhauser <[email protected]> Cc: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Cc: Nikita Popov <[email protected]> Cc: [email protected] --- Changes since v1: - Include feedback from Paul E. McKenney. Changes since v0: - Include feedback from Alan Stern. --- Documentation/RCU/rcu_dereference.rst | 38 +++++++++++++++++++++++---- 1 file changed, 33 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/RCU/rcu_dereference.rst b/Documentation/RCU/rcu_dereference.rst index 2524dcdadde2..de6175bf430f 100644 --- a/Documentation/RCU/rcu_dereference.rst +++ b/Documentation/RCU/rcu_dereference.rst @@ -104,11 +104,12 @@ readers working properly: after such branches, but can speculate loads, which can again result in misordering bugs. -- Be very careful about comparing pointers obtained from - rcu_dereference() against non-NULL values. As Linus Torvalds - explained, if the two pointers are equal, the compiler could - substitute the pointer you are comparing against for the pointer - obtained from rcu_dereference(). For example:: +- Use operations that preserve address dependencies (such as + "ptr_eq()") to compare pointers obtained from rcu_dereference() + against non-NULL pointers. As Linus Torvalds explained, if the + two pointers are equal, the compiler could substitute the + pointer you are comparing against for the pointer obtained from + rcu_dereference(). For example:: p = rcu_dereference(gp); if (p == &default_struct) @@ -125,6 +126,29 @@ readers working properly: On ARM and Power hardware, the load from "default_struct.a" can now be speculated, such that it might happen before the rcu_dereference(). This could result in bugs due to misordering. + Performing the comparison with "ptr_eq()" ensures the compiler + does not perform such transformation. + + If the comparison is against another pointer, the compiler is + allowed to use either pointer for the following accesses, which + loses the address dependency and allows weakly-ordered + architectures such as ARM and PowerPC to speculate the + address-dependent load before rcu_dereference(). For example:: + + p1 = READ_ONCE(gp); + p2 = rcu_dereference(gp); + if (p1 == p2) /* BUGGY!!! */ + do_default(p2->a); + + The compiler can use p1->a rather than p2->a, destroying the + address dependency. Performing the comparison with "ptr_eq()" + ensures the compiler preserves the address dependencies. + Corrected code:: + + p1 = READ_ONCE(gp); + p2 = rcu_dereference(gp); + if (ptr_eq(p1, p2)) + do_default(p2->a); However, comparisons are OK in the following cases: @@ -204,6 +228,10 @@ readers working properly: comparison will provide exactly the information that the compiler needs to deduce the value of the pointer. + When in doubt, use operations that preserve address dependencies + (such as "ptr_eq()") to compare pointers obtained from + rcu_dereference() against non-NULL pointers. + - Disable any value-speculation optimizations that your compiler might provide, especially if you are making use of feedback-based optimizations that take data collected from prior runs. Such -- 2.39.5
