[PATCH] srcu-3: RCU variant permitting read-side blocking

Updated patch adding a variant of RCU that permits sleeping in read-side
critical sections.  SRCU is as follows:

o	Each use of SRCU creates its own srcu_struct, and each
	srcu_struct has its own set of grace periods.  This is
	critical, as it prevents one subsystem with a blocking
	reader from holding up SRCU grace periods for other
	subsystems.

o	The SRCU primitives (srcu_read_lock(), srcu_read_unlock(),
	and synchronize_srcu()) all take a pointer to a srcu_struct.

o	The SRCU primitives must be called from process context.

o	srcu_read_lock() returns an int that must be passed to
	the matching srcu_read_unlock().  Realtime RCU avoids the
	need for this by storing the state in the task struct,
	but SRCU needs to allow a given code path to pass through
	multiple SRCU domains -- storing state in the task struct
	would therefore require either arbitrary space in the
	task struct or arbitrary limits on SRCU nesting.  So I
	kicked the state-storage problem up to the caller.

	Of course, it is not permitted to call synchronize_srcu()
	while in an SRCU read-side critical section.

o	There is no call_srcu().  It would not be hard to implement
	one, but it seems like too easy a way to OOM the system.
	(Hey, we have enough trouble with call_rcu(), which does
	-not- permit readers to sleep!!!)  So, if you want it,
	please tell me why...

[[email protected]: sparse notation]
Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Josh Triplett <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <[email protected]>
This commit is contained in:
Paul E. McKenney 2006-10-04 02:17:02 -07:00 • committed by Linus Torvalds
commit 621934ee7e
6 changed files with 350 additions and 2 deletions

View file

@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ obj-y = sched.o fork.o exec_domain.o panic.o printk.o profile.o \
signal.o sys.o kmod.o workqueue.o pid.o \
rcupdate.o extable.o params.o posix-timers.o \
kthread.o wait.o kfifo.o sys_ni.o posix-cpu-timers.o mutex.o \
hrtimer.o rwsem.o latency.o nsproxy.o
hrtimer.o rwsem.o latency.o nsproxy.o srcu.o
obj-$(CONFIG_STACKTRACE) += stacktrace.o
obj-y += time/