linux/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
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   1                         ============================
   2                         LINUX KERNEL MEMORY BARRIERS
   3                         ============================
   4
   5By: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
   6    Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
   7
   8Contents:
   9
  10 (*) Abstract memory access model.
  11
  12     - Device operations.
  13     - Guarantees.
  14
  15 (*) What are memory barriers?
  16
  17     - Varieties of memory barrier.
  18     - What may not be assumed about memory barriers?
  19     - Data dependency barriers.
  20     - Control dependencies.
  21     - SMP barrier pairing.
  22     - Examples of memory barrier sequences.
  23     - Read memory barriers vs load speculation.
  24     - Transitivity
  25
  26 (*) Explicit kernel barriers.
  27
  28     - Compiler barrier.
  29     - CPU memory barriers.
  30     - MMIO write barrier.
  31
  32 (*) Implicit kernel memory barriers.
  33
  34     - Locking functions.
  35     - Interrupt disabling functions.
  36     - Sleep and wake-up functions.
  37     - Miscellaneous functions.
  38
  39 (*) Inter-CPU locking barrier effects.
  40
  41     - Locks vs memory accesses.
  42     - Locks vs I/O accesses.
  43
  44 (*) Where are memory barriers needed?
  45
  46     - Interprocessor interaction.
  47     - Atomic operations.
  48     - Accessing devices.
  49     - Interrupts.
  50
  51 (*) Kernel I/O barrier effects.
  52
  53 (*) Assumed minimum execution ordering model.
  54
  55 (*) The effects of the cpu cache.
  56
  57     - Cache coherency.
  58     - Cache coherency vs DMA.
  59     - Cache coherency vs MMIO.
  60
  61 (*) The things CPUs get up to.
  62
  63     - And then there's the Alpha.
  64
  65 (*) Example uses.
  66
  67     - Circular buffers.
  68
  69 (*) References.
  70
  71
  72============================
  73ABSTRACT MEMORY ACCESS MODEL
  74============================
  75
  76Consider the following abstract model of the system:
  77
  78                            :                :
  79                            :                :
  80                            :                :
  81                +-------+   :   +--------+   :   +-------+
  82                |       |   :   |        |   :   |       |
  83                |       |   :   |        |   :   |       |
  84                | CPU 1 |<----->| Memory |<----->| CPU 2 |
  85                |       |   :   |        |   :   |       |
  86                |       |   :   |        |   :   |       |
  87                +-------+   :   +--------+   :   +-------+
  88                    ^       :       ^        :       ^
  89                    |       :       |        :       |
  90                    |       :       |        :       |
  91                    |       :       v        :       |
  92                    |       :   +--------+   :       |
  93                    |       :   |        |   :       |
  94                    |       :   |        |   :       |
  95                    +---------->| Device |<----------+
  96                            :   |        |   :
  97                            :   |        |   :
  98                            :   +--------+   :
  99                            :                :
 100
 101Each CPU executes a program that generates memory access operations.  In the
 102abstract CPU, memory operation ordering is very relaxed, and a CPU may actually
 103perform the memory operations in any order it likes, provided program causality
 104appears to be maintained.  Similarly, the compiler may also arrange the
 105instructions it emits in any order it likes, provided it doesn't affect the
 106apparent operation of the program.
 107
 108So in the above diagram, the effects of the memory operations performed by a
 109CPU are perceived by the rest of the system as the operations cross the
 110interface between the CPU and rest of the system (the dotted lines).
 111
 112
 113For example, consider the following sequence of events:
 114
 115        CPU 1           CPU 2
 116        =============== ===============
 117        { A == 1; B == 2 }
 118        A = 3;          x = A;
 119        B = 4;          y = B;
 120
 121The set of accesses as seen by the memory system in the middle can be arranged
 122in 24 different combinations:
 123
 124        STORE A=3,      STORE B=4,      x=LOAD A->3,    y=LOAD B->4
 125        STORE A=3,      STORE B=4,      y=LOAD B->4,    x=LOAD A->3
 126        STORE A=3,      x=LOAD A->3,    STORE B=4,      y=LOAD B->4
 127        STORE A=3,      x=LOAD A->3,    y=LOAD B->2,    STORE B=4
 128        STORE A=3,      y=LOAD B->2,    STORE B=4,      x=LOAD A->3
 129        STORE A=3,      y=LOAD B->2,    x=LOAD A->3,    STORE B=4
 130        STORE B=4,      STORE A=3,      x=LOAD A->3,    y=LOAD B->4
 131        STORE B=4, ...
 132        ...
 133
 134and can thus result in four different combinations of values:
 135
 136        x == 1, y == 2
 137        x == 1, y == 4
 138        x == 3, y == 2
 139        x == 3, y == 4
 140
 141
 142Furthermore, the stores committed by a CPU to the memory system may not be
 143perceived by the loads made by another CPU in the same order as the stores were
 144committed.
 145
 146
 147As a further example, consider this sequence of events:
 148
 149        CPU 1           CPU 2
 150        =============== ===============
 151        { A == 1, B == 2, C = 3, P == &A, Q == &C }
 152        B = 4;          Q = P;
 153        P = &B          D = *Q;
 154
 155There is an obvious data dependency here, as the value loaded into D depends on
 156the address retrieved from P by CPU 2.  At the end of the sequence, any of the
 157following results are possible:
 158
 159        (Q == &A) and (D == 1)
 160        (Q == &B) and (D == 2)
 161        (Q == &B) and (D == 4)
 162
 163Note that CPU 2 will never try and load C into D because the CPU will load P
 164into Q before issuing the load of *Q.
 165
 166
 167DEVICE OPERATIONS
 168-----------------
 169
 170Some devices present their control interfaces as collections of memory
 171locations, but the order in which the control registers are accessed is very
 172important.  For instance, imagine an ethernet card with a set of internal
 173registers that are accessed through an address port register (A) and a data
 174port register (D).  To read internal register 5, the following code might then
 175be used:
 176
 177        *A = 5;
 178        x = *D;
 179
 180but this might show up as either of the following two sequences:
 181
 182        STORE *A = 5, x = LOAD *D
 183        x = LOAD *D, STORE *A = 5
 184
 185the second of which will almost certainly result in a malfunction, since it set
 186the address _after_ attempting to read the register.
 187
 188
 189GUARANTEES
 190----------
 191
 192There are some minimal guarantees that may be expected of a CPU:
 193
 194 (*) On any given CPU, dependent memory accesses will be issued in order, with
 195     respect to itself.  This means that for:
 196
 197        Q = P; D = *Q;
 198
 199     the CPU will issue the following memory operations:
 200
 201        Q = LOAD P, D = LOAD *Q
 202
 203     and always in that order.
 204
 205 (*) Overlapping loads and stores within a particular CPU will appear to be
 206     ordered within that CPU.  This means that for:
 207
 208        a = *X; *X = b;
 209
 210     the CPU will only issue the following sequence of memory operations:
 211
 212        a = LOAD *X, STORE *X = b
 213
 214     And for:
 215
 216        *X = c; d = *X;
 217
 218     the CPU will only issue:
 219
 220        STORE *X = c, d = LOAD *X
 221
 222     (Loads and stores overlap if they are targeted at overlapping pieces of
 223     memory).
 224
 225And there are a number of things that _must_ or _must_not_ be assumed:
 226
 227 (*) It _must_not_ be assumed that independent loads and stores will be issued
 228     in the order given.  This means that for:
 229
 230        X = *A; Y = *B; *D = Z;
 231
 232     we may get any of the following sequences:
 233
 234        X = LOAD *A,  Y = LOAD *B,  STORE *D = Z
 235        X = LOAD *A,  STORE *D = Z, Y = LOAD *B
 236        Y = LOAD *B,  X = LOAD *A,  STORE *D = Z
 237        Y = LOAD *B,  STORE *D = Z, X = LOAD *A
 238        STORE *D = Z, X = LOAD *A,  Y = LOAD *B
 239        STORE *D = Z, Y = LOAD *B,  X = LOAD *A
 240
 241 (*) It _must_ be assumed that overlapping memory accesses may be merged or
 242     discarded.  This means that for:
 243
 244        X = *A; Y = *(A + 4);
 245
 246     we may get any one of the following sequences:
 247
 248        X = LOAD *A; Y = LOAD *(A + 4);
 249        Y = LOAD *(A + 4); X = LOAD *A;
 250        {X, Y} = LOAD {*A, *(A + 4) };
 251
 252     And for:
 253
 254        *A = X; Y = *A;
 255
 256     we may get either of:
 257
 258        STORE *A = X; Y = LOAD *A;
 259        STORE *A = Y = X;
 260
 261
 262=========================
 263WHAT ARE MEMORY BARRIERS?
 264=========================
 265
 266As can be seen above, independent memory operations are effectively performed
 267in random order, but this can be a problem for CPU-CPU interaction and for I/O.
 268What is required is some way of intervening to instruct the compiler and the
 269CPU to restrict the order.
 270
 271Memory barriers are such interventions.  They impose a perceived partial
 272ordering over the memory operations on either side of the barrier.
 273
 274Such enforcement is important because the CPUs and other devices in a system
 275can use a variety of tricks to improve performance, including reordering,
 276deferral and combination of memory operations; speculative loads; speculative
 277branch prediction and various types of caching.  Memory barriers are used to
 278override or suppress these tricks, allowing the code to sanely control the
 279interaction of multiple CPUs and/or devices.
 280
 281
 282VARIETIES OF MEMORY BARRIER
 283---------------------------
 284
 285Memory barriers come in four basic varieties:
 286
 287 (1) Write (or store) memory barriers.
 288
 289     A write memory barrier gives a guarantee that all the STORE operations
 290     specified before the barrier will appear to happen before all the STORE
 291     operations specified after the barrier with respect to the other
 292     components of the system.
 293
 294     A write barrier is a partial ordering on stores only; it is not required
 295     to have any effect on loads.
 296
 297     A CPU can be viewed as committing a sequence of store operations to the
 298     memory system as time progresses.  All stores before a write barrier will
 299     occur in the sequence _before_ all the stores after the write barrier.
 300
 301     [!] Note that write barriers should normally be paired with read or data
 302     dependency barriers; see the "SMP barrier pairing" subsection.
 303
 304
 305 (2) Data dependency barriers.
 306
 307     A data dependency barrier is a weaker form of read barrier.  In the case
 308     where two loads are performed such that the second depends on the result
 309     of the first (eg: the first load retrieves the address to which the second
 310     load will be directed), a data dependency barrier would be required to
 311     make sure that the target of the second load is updated before the address
 312     obtained by the first load is accessed.
 313
 314     A data dependency barrier is a partial ordering on interdependent loads
 315     only; it is not required to have any effect on stores, independent loads
 316     or overlapping loads.
 317
 318     As mentioned in (1), the other CPUs in the system can be viewed as
 319     committing sequences of stores to the memory system that the CPU being
 320     considered can then perceive.  A data dependency barrier issued by the CPU
 321     under consideration guarantees that for any load preceding it, if that
 322     load touches one of a sequence of stores from another CPU, then by the
 323     time the barrier completes, the effects of all the stores prior to that
 324     touched by the load will be perceptible to any loads issued after the data
 325     dependency barrier.
 326
 327     See the "Examples of memory barrier sequences" subsection for diagrams
 328     showing the ordering constraints.
 329
 330     [!] Note that the first load really has to have a _data_ dependency and
 331     not a control dependency.  If the address for the second load is dependent
 332     on the first load, but the dependency is through a conditional rather than
 333     actually loading the address itself, then it's a _control_ dependency and
 334     a full read barrier or better is required.  See the "Control dependencies"
 335     subsection for more information.
 336
 337     [!] Note that data dependency barriers should normally be paired with
 338     write barriers; see the "SMP barrier pairing" subsection.
 339
 340
 341 (3) Read (or load) memory barriers.
 342
 343     A read barrier is a data dependency barrier plus a guarantee that all the
 344     LOAD operations specified before the barrier will appear to happen before
 345     all the LOAD operations specified after the barrier with respect to the
 346     other components of the system.
 347
 348     A read barrier is a partial ordering on loads only; it is not required to
 349     have any effect on stores.
 350
 351     Read memory barriers imply data dependency barriers, and so can substitute
 352     for them.
 353
 354     [!] Note that read barriers should normally be paired with write barriers;
 355     see the "SMP barrier pairing" subsection.
 356
 357
 358 (4) General memory barriers.
 359
 360     A general memory barrier gives a guarantee that all the LOAD and STORE
 361     operations specified before the barrier will appear to happen before all
 362     the LOAD and STORE operations specified after the barrier with respect to
 363     the other components of the system.
 364
 365     A general memory barrier is a partial ordering over both loads and stores.
 366
 367     General memory barriers imply both read and write memory barriers, and so
 368     can substitute for either.
 369
 370
 371And a couple of implicit varieties:
 372
 373 (5) LOCK operations.
 374
 375     This acts as a one-way permeable barrier.  It guarantees that all memory
 376     operations after the LOCK operation will appear to happen after the LOCK
 377     operation with respect to the other components of the system.
 378
 379     Memory operations that occur before a LOCK operation may appear to happen
 380     after it completes.
 381
 382     A LOCK operation should almost always be paired with an UNLOCK operation.
 383
 384
 385 (6) UNLOCK operations.
 386
 387     This also acts as a one-way permeable barrier.  It guarantees that all
 388     memory operations before the UNLOCK operation will appear to happen before
 389     the UNLOCK operation with respect to the other components of the system.
 390
 391     Memory operations that occur after an UNLOCK operation may appear to
 392     happen before it completes.
 393
 394     LOCK and UNLOCK operations are guaranteed to appear with respect to each
 395     other strictly in the order specified.
 396
 397     The use of LOCK and UNLOCK operations generally precludes the need for
 398     other sorts of memory barrier (but note the exceptions mentioned in the
 399     subsection "MMIO write barrier").
 400
 401
 402Memory barriers are only required where there's a possibility of interaction
 403between two CPUs or between a CPU and a device.  If it can be guaranteed that
 404there won't be any such interaction in any particular piece of code, then
 405memory barriers are unnecessary in that piece of code.
 406
 407
 408Note that these are the _minimum_ guarantees.  Different architectures may give
 409more substantial guarantees, but they may _not_ be relied upon outside of arch
 410specific code.
 411
 412
 413WHAT MAY NOT BE ASSUMED ABOUT MEMORY BARRIERS?
 414----------------------------------------------
 415
 416There are certain things that the Linux kernel memory barriers do not guarantee:
 417
 418 (*) There is no guarantee that any of the memory accesses specified before a
 419     memory barrier will be _complete_ by the completion of a memory barrier
 420     instruction; the barrier can be considered to draw a line in that CPU's
 421     access queue that accesses of the appropriate type may not cross.
 422
 423 (*) There is no guarantee that issuing a memory barrier on one CPU will have
 424     any direct effect on another CPU or any other hardware in the system.  The
 425     indirect effect will be the order in which the second CPU sees the effects
 426     of the first CPU's accesses occur, but see the next point:
 427
 428 (*) There is no guarantee that a CPU will see the correct order of effects
 429     from a second CPU's accesses, even _if_ the second CPU uses a memory
 430     barrier, unless the first CPU _also_ uses a matching memory barrier (see
 431     the subsection on "SMP Barrier Pairing").
 432
 433 (*) There is no guarantee that some intervening piece of off-the-CPU
 434     hardware[*] will not reorder the memory accesses.  CPU cache coherency
 435     mechanisms should propagate the indirect effects of a memory barrier
 436     between CPUs, but might not do so in order.
 437
 438        [*] For information on bus mastering DMA and coherency please read:
 439
 440            Documentation/PCI/pci.txt
 441            Documentation/DMA-API-HOWTO.txt
 442            Documentation/DMA-API.txt
 443
 444
 445DATA DEPENDENCY BARRIERS
 446------------------------
 447
 448The usage requirements of data dependency barriers are a little subtle, and
 449it's not always obvious that they're needed.  To illustrate, consider the
 450following sequence of events:
 451
 452        CPU 1           CPU 2
 453        =============== ===============
 454        { A == 1, B == 2, C = 3, P == &A, Q == &C }
 455        B = 4;
 456        <write barrier>
 457        P = &B
 458                        Q = P;
 459                        D = *Q;
 460
 461There's a clear data dependency here, and it would seem that by the end of the
 462sequence, Q must be either &A or &B, and that:
 463
 464        (Q == &A) implies (D == 1)
 465        (Q == &B) implies (D == 4)
 466
 467But!  CPU 2's perception of P may be updated _before_ its perception of B, thus
 468leading to the following situation:
 469
 470        (Q == &B) and (D == 2) ????
 471
 472Whilst this may seem like a failure of coherency or causality maintenance, it
 473isn't, and this behaviour can be observed on certain real CPUs (such as the DEC
 474Alpha).
 475
 476To deal with this, a data dependency barrier or better must be inserted
 477between the address load and the data load:
 478
 479        CPU 1           CPU 2
 480        =============== ===============
 481        { A == 1, B == 2, C = 3, P == &A, Q == &C }
 482        B = 4;
 483        <write barrier>
 484        P = &B
 485                        Q = P;
 486                        <data dependency barrier>
 487                        D = *Q;
 488
 489This enforces the occurrence of one of the two implications, and prevents the
 490third possibility from arising.
 491
 492[!] Note that this extremely counterintuitive situation arises most easily on
 493machines with split caches, so that, for example, one cache bank processes
 494even-numbered cache lines and the other bank processes odd-numbered cache
 495lines.  The pointer P might be stored in an odd-numbered cache line, and the
 496variable B might be stored in an even-numbered cache line.  Then, if the
 497even-numbered bank of the reading CPU's cache is extremely busy while the
 498odd-numbered bank is idle, one can see the new value of the pointer P (&B),
 499but the old value of the variable B (2).
 500
 501
 502Another example of where data dependency barriers might by required is where a
 503number is read from memory and then used to calculate the index for an array
 504access:
 505
 506        CPU 1           CPU 2
 507        =============== ===============
 508        { M[0] == 1, M[1] == 2, M[3] = 3, P == 0, Q == 3 }
 509        M[1] = 4;
 510        <write barrier>
 511        P = 1
 512                        Q = P;
 513                        <data dependency barrier>
 514                        D = M[Q];
 515
 516
 517The data dependency barrier is very important to the RCU system, for example.
 518See rcu_dereference() in include/linux/rcupdate.h.  This permits the current
 519target of an RCU'd pointer to be replaced with a new modified target, without
 520the replacement target appearing to be incompletely initialised.
 521
 522See also the subsection on "Cache Coherency" for a more thorough example.
 523
 524
 525CONTROL DEPENDENCIES
 526--------------------
 527
 528A control dependency requires a full read memory barrier, not simply a data
 529dependency barrier to make it work correctly.  Consider the following bit of
 530code:
 531
 532        q = &a;
 533        if (p)
 534                q = &b;
 535        <data dependency barrier>
 536        x = *q;
 537
 538This will not have the desired effect because there is no actual data
 539dependency, but rather a control dependency that the CPU may short-circuit by
 540attempting to predict the outcome in advance.  In such a case what's actually
 541required is:
 542
 543        q = &a;
 544        if (p)
 545                q = &b;
 546        <read barrier>
 547        x = *q;
 548
 549
 550SMP BARRIER PAIRING
 551-------------------
 552
 553When dealing with CPU-CPU interactions, certain types of memory barrier should
 554always be paired.  A lack of appropriate pairing is almost certainly an error.
 555
 556A write barrier should always be paired with a data dependency barrier or read
 557barrier, though a general barrier would also be viable.  Similarly a read
 558barrier or a data dependency barrier should always be paired with at least an
 559write barrier, though, again, a general barrier is viable:
 560
 561        CPU 1           CPU 2
 562        =============== ===============
 563        a = 1;
 564        <write barrier>
 565        b = 2;          x = b;
 566                        <read barrier>
 567                        y = a;
 568
 569Or:
 570
 571        CPU 1           CPU 2
 572        =============== ===============================
 573        a = 1;
 574        <write barrier>
 575        b = &a;         x = b;
 576                        <data dependency barrier>
 577                        y = *x;
 578
 579Basically, the read barrier always has to be there, even though it can be of
 580the "weaker" type.
 581
 582[!] Note that the stores before the write barrier would normally be expected to
 583match the loads after the read barrier or the data dependency barrier, and vice
 584versa:
 585
 586        CPU 1                           CPU 2
 587        ===============                 ===============
 588        a = 1;           }----   --->{  v = c
 589        b = 2;           }    \ /    {  w = d
 590        <write barrier>        \        <read barrier>
 591        c = 3;           }    / \    {  x = a;
 592        d = 4;           }----   --->{  y = b;
 593
 594
 595EXAMPLES OF MEMORY BARRIER SEQUENCES
 596------------------------------------
 597
 598Firstly, write barriers act as partial orderings on store operations.
 599Consider the following sequence of events:
 600
 601        CPU 1
 602        =======================
 603        STORE A = 1
 604        STORE B = 2
 605        STORE C = 3
 606        <write barrier>
 607        STORE D = 4
 608        STORE E = 5
 609
 610This sequence of events is committed to the memory coherence system in an order
 611that the rest of the system might perceive as the unordered set of { STORE A,
 612STORE B, STORE C } all occurring before the unordered set of { STORE D, STORE E
 613}:
 614
 615        +-------+       :      :
 616        |       |       +------+
 617        |       |------>| C=3  |     }     /\
 618        |       |  :    +------+     }-----  \  -----> Events perceptible to
 619        |       |  :    | A=1  |     }        \/       the rest of the system
 620        |       |  :    +------+     }
 621        | CPU 1 |  :    | B=2  |     }
 622        |       |       +------+     }
 623        |       |   wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww }   <--- At this point the write barrier
 624        |       |       +------+     }        requires all stores prior to the
 625        |       |  :    | E=5  |     }        barrier to be committed before
 626        |       |  :    +------+     }        further stores may take place
 627        |       |------>| D=4  |     }
 628        |       |       +------+
 629        +-------+       :      :
 630                           |
 631                           | Sequence in which stores are committed to the
 632                           | memory system by CPU 1
 633                           V
 634
 635
 636Secondly, data dependency barriers act as partial orderings on data-dependent
 637loads.  Consider the following sequence of events:
 638
 639        CPU 1                   CPU 2
 640        ======================= =======================
 641                { B = 7; X = 9; Y = 8; C = &Y }
 642        STORE A = 1
 643        STORE B = 2
 644        <write barrier>
 645        STORE C = &B            LOAD X
 646        STORE D = 4             LOAD C (gets &B)
 647                                LOAD *C (reads B)
 648
 649Without intervention, CPU 2 may perceive the events on CPU 1 in some
 650effectively random order, despite the write barrier issued by CPU 1:
 651
 652        +-------+       :      :                :       :
 653        |       |       +------+                +-------+  | Sequence of update
 654        |       |------>| B=2  |-----       --->| Y->8  |  | of perception on
 655        |       |  :    +------+     \          +-------+  | CPU 2
 656        | CPU 1 |  :    | A=1  |      \     --->| C->&Y |  V
 657        |       |       +------+       |        +-------+
 658        |       |   wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww   |        :       :
 659        |       |       +------+       |        :       :
 660        |       |  :    | C=&B |---    |        :       :       +-------+
 661        |       |  :    +------+   \   |        +-------+       |       |
 662        |       |------>| D=4  |    ----------->| C->&B |------>|       |
 663        |       |       +------+       |        +-------+       |       |
 664        +-------+       :      :       |        :       :       |       |
 665                                       |        :       :       |       |
 666                                       |        :       :       | CPU 2 |
 667                                       |        +-------+       |       |
 668            Apparently incorrect --->  |        | B->7  |------>|       |
 669            perception of B (!)        |        +-------+       |       |
 670                                       |        :       :       |       |
 671                                       |        +-------+       |       |
 672            The load of X holds --->    \       | X->9  |------>|       |
 673            up the maintenance           \      +-------+       |       |
 674            of coherence of B             ----->| B->2  |       +-------+
 675                                                +-------+
 676                                                :       :
 677
 678
 679In the above example, CPU 2 perceives that B is 7, despite the load of *C
 680(which would be B) coming after the LOAD of C.
 681
 682If, however, a data dependency barrier were to be placed between the load of C
 683and the load of *C (ie: B) on CPU 2:
 684
 685        CPU 1                   CPU 2
 686        ======================= =======================
 687                { B = 7; X = 9; Y = 8; C = &Y }
 688        STORE A = 1
 689        STORE B = 2
 690        <write barrier>
 691        STORE C = &B            LOAD X
 692        STORE D = 4             LOAD C (gets &B)
 693                                <data dependency barrier>
 694                                LOAD *C (reads B)
 695
 696then the following will occur:
 697
 698        +-------+       :      :                :       :
 699        |       |       +------+                +-------+
 700        |       |------>| B=2  |-----       --->| Y->8  |
 701        |       |  :    +------+     \          +-------+
 702        | CPU 1 |  :    | A=1  |      \     --->| C->&Y |
 703        |       |       +------+       |        +-------+
 704        |       |   wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww   |        :       :
 705        |       |       +------+       |        :       :
 706        |       |  :    | C=&B |---    |        :       :       +-------+
 707        |       |  :    +------+   \   |        +-------+       |       |
 708        |       |------>| D=4  |    ----------->| C->&B |------>|       |
 709        |       |       +------+       |        +-------+       |       |
 710        +-------+       :      :       |        :       :       |       |
 711                                       |        :       :       |       |
 712                                       |        :       :       | CPU 2 |
 713                                       |        +-------+       |       |
 714                                       |        | X->9  |------>|       |
 715                                       |        +-------+       |       |
 716          Makes sure all effects --->   \   ddddddddddddddddd   |       |
 717          prior to the store of C        \      +-------+       |       |
 718          are perceptible to              ----->| B->2  |------>|       |
 719          subsequent loads                      +-------+       |       |
 720                                                :       :       +-------+
 721
 722
 723And thirdly, a read barrier acts as a partial order on loads.  Consider the
 724following sequence of events:
 725
 726        CPU 1                   CPU 2
 727        ======================= =======================
 728                { A = 0, B = 9 }
 729        STORE A=1
 730        <write barrier>
 731        STORE B=2
 732                                LOAD B
 733                                LOAD A
 734
 735Without intervention, CPU 2 may then choose to perceive the events on CPU 1 in
 736some effectively random order, despite the write barrier issued by CPU 1:
 737
 738        +-------+       :      :                :       :
 739        |       |       +------+                +-------+
 740        |       |------>| A=1  |------      --->| A->0  |
 741        |       |       +------+      \         +-------+
 742        | CPU 1 |   wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww   \    --->| B->9  |
 743        |       |       +------+        |       +-------+
 744        |       |------>| B=2  |---     |       :       :
 745        |       |       +------+   \    |       :       :       +-------+
 746        +-------+       :      :    \   |       +-------+       |       |
 747                                     ---------->| B->2  |------>|       |
 748                                        |       +-------+       | CPU 2 |
 749                                        |       | A->0  |------>|       |
 750                                        |       +-------+       |       |
 751                                        |       :       :       +-------+
 752                                         \      :       :
 753                                          \     +-------+
 754                                           ---->| A->1  |
 755                                                +-------+
 756                                                :       :
 757
 758
 759If, however, a read barrier were to be placed between the load of B and the
 760load of A on CPU 2:
 761
 762        CPU 1                   CPU 2
 763        ======================= =======================
 764                { A = 0, B = 9 }
 765        STORE A=1
 766        <write barrier>
 767        STORE B=2
 768                                LOAD B
 769                                <read barrier>
 770                                LOAD A
 771
 772then the partial ordering imposed by CPU 1 will be perceived correctly by CPU
 7732:
 774
 775        +-------+       :      :                :       :
 776        |       |       +------+                +-------+
 777        |       |------>| A=1  |------      --->| A->0  |
 778        |       |       +------+      \         +-------+
 779        | CPU 1 |   wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww   \    --->| B->9  |
 780        |       |       +------+        |       +-------+
 781        |       |------>| B=2  |---     |       :       :
 782        |       |       +------+   \    |       :       :       +-------+
 783        +-------+       :      :    \   |       +-------+       |       |
 784                                     ---------->| B->2  |------>|       |
 785                                        |       +-------+       | CPU 2 |
 786                                        |       :       :       |       |
 787                                        |       :       :       |       |
 788          At this point the read ---->   \  rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr   |       |
 789          barrier causes all effects      \     +-------+       |       |
 790          prior to the storage of B        ---->| A->1  |------>|       |
 791          to be perceptible to CPU 2            +-------+       |       |
 792                                                :       :       +-------+
 793
 794
 795To illustrate this more completely, consider what could happen if the code
 796contained a load of A either side of the read barrier:
 797
 798        CPU 1                   CPU 2
 799        ======================= =======================
 800                { A = 0, B = 9 }
 801        STORE A=1
 802        <write barrier>
 803        STORE B=2
 804                                LOAD B
 805                                LOAD A [first load of A]
 806                                <read barrier>
 807                                LOAD A [second load of A]
 808
 809Even though the two loads of A both occur after the load of B, they may both
 810come up with different values:
 811
 812        +-------+       :      :                :       :
 813        |       |       +------+                +-------+
 814        |       |------>| A=1  |------      --->| A->0  |
 815        |       |       +------+      \         +-------+
 816        | CPU 1 |   wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww   \    --->| B->9  |
 817        |       |       +------+        |       +-------+
 818        |       |------>| B=2  |---     |       :       :
 819        |       |       +------+   \    |       :       :       +-------+
 820        +-------+       :      :    \   |       +-------+       |       |
 821                                     ---------->| B->2  |------>|       |
 822                                        |       +-------+       | CPU 2 |
 823                                        |       :       :       |       |
 824                                        |       :       :       |       |
 825                                        |       +-------+       |       |
 826                                        |       | A->0  |------>| 1st   |
 827                                        |       +-------+       |       |
 828          At this point the read ---->   \  rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr   |       |
 829          barrier causes all effects      \     +-------+       |       |
 830          prior to the storage of B        ---->| A->1  |------>| 2nd   |
 831          to be perceptible to CPU 2            +-------+       |       |
 832                                                :       :       +-------+
 833
 834
 835But it may be that the update to A from CPU 1 becomes perceptible to CPU 2
 836before the read barrier completes anyway:
 837
 838        +-------+       :      :                :       :
 839        |       |       +------+                +-------+
 840        |       |------>| A=1  |------      --->| A->0  |
 841        |       |       +------+      \         +-------+
 842        | CPU 1 |   wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww   \    --->| B->9  |
 843        |       |       +------+        |       +-------+
 844        |       |------>| B=2  |---     |       :       :
 845        |       |       +------+   \    |       :       :       +-------+
 846        +-------+       :      :    \   |       +-------+       |       |
 847                                     ---------->| B->2  |------>|       |
 848                                        |       +-------+       | CPU 2 |
 849                                        |       :       :       |       |
 850                                         \      :       :       |       |
 851                                          \     +-------+       |       |
 852                                           ---->| A->1  |------>| 1st   |
 853                                                +-------+       |       |
 854                                            rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr   |       |
 855                                                +-------+       |       |
 856                                                | A->1  |------>| 2nd   |
 857                                                +-------+       |       |
 858                                                :       :       +-------+
 859
 860
 861The guarantee is that the second load will always come up with A == 1 if the
 862load of B came up with B == 2.  No such guarantee exists for the first load of
 863A; that may come up with either A == 0 or A == 1.
 864
 865
 866READ MEMORY BARRIERS VS LOAD SPECULATION
 867----------------------------------------
 868
 869Many CPUs speculate with loads: that is they see that they will need to load an
 870item from memory, and they find a time where they're not using the bus for any
 871other loads, and so do the load in advance - even though they haven't actually
 872got to that point in the instruction execution flow yet.  This permits the
 873actual load instruction to potentially complete immediately because the CPU
 874already has the value to hand.
 875
 876It may turn out that the CPU didn't actually need the value - perhaps because a
 877branch circumvented the load - in which case it can discard the value or just
 878cache it for later use.
 879
 880Consider:
 881
 882        CPU 1                   CPU 2
 883        ======================= =======================
 884                                LOAD B
 885                                DIVIDE          } Divide instructions generally
 886                                DIVIDE          } take a long time to perform
 887                                LOAD A
 888
 889Which might appear as this:
 890
 891                                                :       :       +-------+
 892                                                +-------+       |       |
 893                                            --->| B->2  |------>|       |
 894                                                +-------+       | CPU 2 |
 895                                                :       :DIVIDE |       |
 896                                                +-------+       |       |
 897        The CPU being busy doing a --->     --->| A->0  |~~~~   |       |
 898        division speculates on the              +-------+   ~   |       |
 899        LOAD of A                               :       :   ~   |       |
 900                                                :       :DIVIDE |       |
 901                                                :       :   ~   |       |
 902        Once the divisions are complete -->     :       :   ~-->|       |
 903        the CPU can then perform the            :       :       |       |
 904        LOAD with immediate effect              :       :       +-------+
 905
 906
 907Placing a read barrier or a data dependency barrier just before the second
 908load:
 909
 910        CPU 1                   CPU 2
 911        ======================= =======================
 912                                LOAD B
 913                                DIVIDE
 914                                DIVIDE
 915                                <read barrier>
 916                                LOAD A
 917
 918will force any value speculatively obtained to be reconsidered to an extent
 919dependent on the type of barrier used.  If there was no change made to the
 920speculated memory location, then the speculated value will just be used:
 921
 922                                                :       :       +-------+
 923                                                +-------+       |       |
 924                                            --->| B->2  |------>|       |
 925                                                +-------+       | CPU 2 |
 926                                                :       :DIVIDE |       |
 927                                                +-------+       |       |
 928        The CPU being busy doing a --->     --->| A->0  |~~~~   |       |
 929        division speculates on the              +-------+   ~   |       |
 930        LOAD of A                               :       :   ~   |       |
 931                                                :       :DIVIDE |       |
 932                                                :       :   ~   |       |
 933                                                :       :   ~   |       |
 934                                            rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr~   |       |
 935                                                :       :   ~   |       |
 936                                                :       :   ~-->|       |
 937                                                :       :       |       |
 938                                                :       :       +-------+
 939
 940
 941but if there was an update or an invalidation from another CPU pending, then
 942the speculation will be cancelled and the value reloaded:
 943
 944                                                :       :       +-------+
 945                                                +-------+       |       |
 946                                            --->| B->2  |------>|       |
 947                                                +-------+       | CPU 2 |
 948                                                :       :DIVIDE |       |
 949                                                +-------+       |       |
 950        The CPU being busy doing a --->     --->| A->0  |~~~~   |       |
 951        division speculates on the              +-------+   ~   |       |
 952        LOAD of A                               :       :   ~   |       |
 953                                                :       :DIVIDE |       |
 954                                                :       :   ~   |       |
 955                                                :       :   ~   |       |
 956                                            rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr   |       |
 957                                                +-------+       |       |
 958        The speculation is discarded --->   --->| A->1  |------>|       |
 959        and an updated value is                 +-------+       |       |
 960        retrieved                               :       :       +-------+
 961
 962
 963TRANSITIVITY
 964------------
 965
 966Transitivity is a deeply intuitive notion about ordering that is not
 967always provided by real computer systems.  The following example
 968demonstrates transitivity (also called "cumulativity"):
 969
 970        CPU 1                   CPU 2                   CPU 3
 971        ======================= ======================= =======================
 972                { X = 0, Y = 0 }
 973        STORE X=1               LOAD X                  STORE Y=1
 974                                <general barrier>       <general barrier>
 975                                LOAD Y                  LOAD X
 976
 977Suppose that CPU 2's load from X returns 1 and its load from Y returns 0.
 978This indicates that CPU 2's load from X in some sense follows CPU 1's
 979store to X and that CPU 2's load from Y in some sense preceded CPU 3's
 980store to Y.  The question is then "Can CPU 3's load from X return 0?"
 981
 982Because CPU 2's load from X in some sense came after CPU 1's store, it
 983is natural to expect that CPU 3's load from X must therefore return 1.
 984This expectation is an example of transitivity: if a load executing on
 985CPU A follows a load from the same variable executing on CPU B, then
 986CPU A's load must either return the same value that CPU B's load did,
 987or must return some later value.
 988
 989In the Linux kernel, use of general memory barriers guarantees
 990transitivity.  Therefore, in the above example, if CPU 2's load from X
 991returns 1 and its load from Y returns 0, then CPU 3's load from X must
 992also return 1.
 993
 994However, transitivity is -not- guaranteed for read or write barriers.
 995For example, suppose that CPU 2's general barrier in the above example
 996is changed to a read barrier as shown below:
 997
 998        CPU 1                   CPU 2                   CPU 3
 999        ======================= ======================= =======================
1000                { X = 0, Y = 0 }
1001        STORE X=1               LOAD X                  STORE Y=1
1002                                <read barrier>          <general barrier>
1003                                LOAD Y                  LOAD X
1004
1005This substitution destroys transitivity: in this example, it is perfectly
1006legal for CPU 2's load from X to return 1, its load from Y to return 0,
1007and CPU 3's load from X to return 0.
1008
1009The key point is that although CPU 2's read barrier orders its pair
1010of loads, it does not guarantee to order CPU 1's store.  Therefore, if
1011this example runs on a system where CPUs 1 and 2 share a store buffer
1012or a level of cache, CPU 2 might have early access to CPU 1's writes.
1013General barriers are therefore required to ensure that all CPUs agree
1014on the combined order of CPU 1's and CPU 2's accesses.
1015
1016To reiterate, if your code requires transitivity, use general barriers
1017throughout.
1018
1019
1020========================
1021EXPLICIT KERNEL BARRIERS
1022========================
1023
1024The Linux kernel has a variety of different barriers that act at different
1025levels:
1026
1027  (*) Compiler barrier.
1028
1029  (*) CPU memory barriers.
1030
1031  (*) MMIO write barrier.
1032
1033
1034COMPILER BARRIER
1035----------------
1036
1037The Linux kernel has an explicit compiler barrier function that prevents the
1038compiler from moving the memory accesses either side of it to the other side:
1039
1040        barrier();
1041
1042This is a general barrier - lesser varieties of compiler barrier do not exist.
1043
1044The compiler barrier has no direct effect on the CPU, which may then reorder
1045things however it wishes.
1046
1047
1048CPU MEMORY BARRIERS
1049-------------------
1050
1051The Linux kernel has eight basic CPU memory barriers:
1052
1053        TYPE            MANDATORY               SMP CONDITIONAL
1054        =============== ======================= ===========================
1055        GENERAL         mb()                    smp_mb()
1056        WRITE           wmb()                   smp_wmb()
1057        READ            rmb()                   smp_rmb()
1058        DATA DEPENDENCY read_barrier_depends()  smp_read_barrier_depends()
1059
1060
1061All memory barriers except the data dependency barriers imply a compiler
1062barrier. Data dependencies do not impose any additional compiler ordering.
1063
1064Aside: In the case of data dependencies, the compiler would be expected to
1065issue the loads in the correct order (eg. `a[b]` would have to load the value
1066of b before loading a[b]), however there is no guarantee in the C specification
1067that the compiler may not speculate the value of b (eg. is equal to 1) and load
1068a before b (eg. tmp = a[1]; if (b != 1) tmp = a[b]; ). There is also the
1069problem of a compiler reloading b after having loaded a[b], thus having a newer
1070copy of b than a[b]. A consensus has not yet been reached about these problems,
1071however the ACCESS_ONCE macro is a good place to start looking.
1072
1073SMP memory barriers are reduced to compiler barriers on uniprocessor compiled
1074systems because it is assumed that a CPU will appear to be self-consistent,
1075and will order overlapping accesses correctly with respect to itself.
1076
1077[!] Note that SMP memory barriers _must_ be used to control the ordering of
1078references to shared memory on SMP systems, though the use of locking instead
1079is sufficient.
1080
1081Mandatory barriers should not be used to control SMP effects, since mandatory
1082barriers unnecessarily impose overhead on UP systems. They may, however, be
1083used to control MMIO effects on accesses through relaxed memory I/O windows.
1084These are required even on non-SMP systems as they affect the order in which
1085memory operations appear to a device by prohibiting both the compiler and the
1086CPU from reordering them.
1087
1088
1089There are some more advanced barrier functions:
1090
1091 (*) set_mb(var, value)
1092
1093     This assigns the value to the variable and then inserts a full memory
1094     barrier after it, depending on the function.  It isn't guaranteed to
1095     insert anything more than a compiler barrier in a UP compilation.
1096
1097
1098 (*) smp_mb__before_atomic_dec();
1099 (*) smp_mb__after_atomic_dec();
1100 (*) smp_mb__before_atomic_inc();
1101 (*) smp_mb__after_atomic_inc();
1102
1103     These are for use with atomic add, subtract, increment and decrement
1104     functions that don't return a value, especially when used for reference
1105     counting.  These functions do not imply memory barriers.
1106
1107     As an example, consider a piece of code that marks an object as being dead
1108     and then decrements the object's reference count:
1109
1110        obj->dead = 1;
1111        smp_mb__before_atomic_dec();
1112        atomic_dec(&obj->ref_count);
1113
1114     This makes sure that the death mark on the object is perceived to be set
1115     *before* the reference counter is decremented.
1116
1117     See Documentation/atomic_ops.txt for more information.  See the "Atomic
1118     operations" subsection for information on where to use these.
1119
1120
1121 (*) smp_mb__before_clear_bit(void);
1122 (*) smp_mb__after_clear_bit(void);
1123
1124     These are for use similar to the atomic inc/dec barriers.  These are
1125     typically used for bitwise unlocking operations, so care must be taken as
1126     there are no implicit memory barriers here either.
1127
1128     Consider implementing an unlock operation of some nature by clearing a
1129     locking bit.  The clear_bit() would then need to be barriered like this:
1130
1131        smp_mb__before_clear_bit();
1132        clear_bit( ... );
1133
1134     This prevents memory operations before the clear leaking to after it.  See
1135     the subsection on "Locking Functions" with reference to UNLOCK operation
1136     implications.
1137
1138     See Documentation/atomic_ops.txt for more information.  See the "Atomic
1139     operations" subsection for information on where to use these.
1140
1141
1142MMIO WRITE BARRIER
1143------------------
1144
1145The Linux kernel also has a special barrier for use with memory-mapped I/O
1146writes:
1147
1148        mmiowb();
1149
1150This is a variation on the mandatory write barrier that causes writes to weakly
1151ordered I/O regions to be partially ordered.  Its effects may go beyond the
1152CPU->Hardware interface and actually affect the hardware at some level.
1153
1154See the subsection "Locks vs I/O accesses" for more information.
1155
1156
1157===============================
1158IMPLICIT KERNEL MEMORY BARRIERS
1159===============================
1160
1161Some of the other functions in the linux kernel imply memory barriers, amongst
1162which are locking and scheduling functions.
1163
1164This specification is a _minimum_ guarantee; any particular architecture may
1165provide more substantial guarantees, but these may not be relied upon outside
1166of arch specific code.
1167
1168
1169LOCKING FUNCTIONS
1170-----------------
1171
1172The Linux kernel has a number of locking constructs:
1173
1174 (*) spin locks
1175 (*) R/W spin locks
1176 (*) mutexes
1177 (*) semaphores
1178 (*) R/W semaphores
1179 (*) RCU
1180
1181In all cases there are variants on "LOCK" operations and "UNLOCK" operations
1182for each construct.  These operations all imply certain barriers:
1183
1184 (1) LOCK operation implication:
1185
1186     Memory operations issued after the LOCK will be completed after the LOCK
1187     operation has completed.
1188
1189     Memory operations issued before the LOCK may be completed after the LOCK
1190     operation has completed.
1191
1192 (2) UNLOCK operation implication:
1193
1194     Memory operations issued before the UNLOCK will be completed before the
1195     UNLOCK operation has completed.
1196
1197     Memory operations issued after the UNLOCK may be completed before the
1198     UNLOCK operation has completed.
1199
1200 (3) LOCK vs LOCK implication:
1201
1202     All LOCK operations issued before another LOCK operation will be completed
1203     before that LOCK operation.
1204
1205 (4) LOCK vs UNLOCK implication:
1206
1207     All LOCK operations issued before an UNLOCK operation will be completed
1208     before the UNLOCK operation.
1209
1210     All UNLOCK operations issued before a LOCK operation will be completed
1211     before the LOCK operation.
1212
1213 (5) Failed conditional LOCK implication:
1214
1215     Certain variants of the LOCK operation may fail, either due to being
1216     unable to get the lock immediately, or due to receiving an unblocked
1217     signal whilst asleep waiting for the lock to become available.  Failed
1218     locks do not imply any sort of barrier.
1219
1220Therefore, from (1), (2) and (4) an UNLOCK followed by an unconditional LOCK is
1221equivalent to a full barrier, but a LOCK followed by an UNLOCK is not.
1222
1223[!] Note: one of the consequences of LOCKs and UNLOCKs being only one-way
1224    barriers is that the effects of instructions outside of a critical section
1225    may seep into the inside of the critical section.
1226
1227A LOCK followed by an UNLOCK may not be assumed to be full memory barrier
1228because it is possible for an access preceding the LOCK to happen after the
1229LOCK, and an access following the UNLOCK to happen before the UNLOCK, and the
1230two accesses can themselves then cross:
1231
1232        *A = a;
1233        LOCK
1234        UNLOCK
1235        *B = b;
1236
1237may occur as:
1238
1239        LOCK, STORE *B, STORE *A, UNLOCK
1240
1241Locks and semaphores may not provide any guarantee of ordering on UP compiled
1242systems, and so cannot be counted on in such a situation to actually achieve
1243anything at all - especially with respect to I/O accesses - unless combined
1244with interrupt disabling operations.
1245
1246See also the section on "Inter-CPU locking barrier effects".
1247
1248
1249As an example, consider the following:
1250
1251        *A = a;
1252        *B = b;
1253        LOCK
1254        *C = c;
1255        *D = d;
1256        UNLOCK
1257        *E = e;
1258        *F = f;
1259
1260The following sequence of events is acceptable:
1261
1262        LOCK, {*F,*A}, *E, {*C,*D}, *B, UNLOCK
1263
1264        [+] Note that {*F,*A} indicates a combined access.
1265
1266But none of the following are:
1267
1268        {*F,*A}, *B,    LOCK, *C, *D,   UNLOCK, *E
1269        *A, *B, *C,     LOCK, *D,       UNLOCK, *E, *F
1270        *A, *B,         LOCK, *C,       UNLOCK, *D, *E, *F
1271        *B,             LOCK, *C, *D,   UNLOCK, {*F,*A}, *E
1272
1273
1274
1275INTERRUPT DISABLING FUNCTIONS
1276-----------------------------
1277
1278Functions that disable interrupts (LOCK equivalent) and enable interrupts
1279(UNLOCK equivalent) will act as compiler barriers only.  So if memory or I/O
1280barriers are required in such a situation, they must be provided from some
1281other means.
1282
1283
1284SLEEP AND WAKE-UP FUNCTIONS
1285---------------------------
1286
1287Sleeping and waking on an event flagged in global data can be viewed as an
1288interaction between two pieces of data: the task state of the task waiting for
1289the event and the global data used to indicate the event.  To make sure that
1290these appear to happen in the right order, the primitives to begin the process
1291of going to sleep, and the primitives to initiate a wake up imply certain
1292barriers.
1293
1294Firstly, the sleeper normally follows something like this sequence of events:
1295
1296        for (;;) {
1297                set_current_state(TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE);
1298                if (event_indicated)
1299                        break;
1300                schedule();
1301        }
1302
1303A general memory barrier is interpolated automatically by set_current_state()
1304after it has altered the task state:
1305
1306        CPU 1
1307        ===============================
1308        set_current_state();
1309          set_mb();
1310            STORE current->state
1311            <general barrier>
1312        LOAD event_indicated
1313
1314set_current_state() may be wrapped by:
1315
1316        prepare_to_wait();
1317        prepare_to_wait_exclusive();
1318
1319which therefore also imply a general memory barrier after setting the state.
1320The whole sequence above is available in various canned forms, all of which
1321interpolate the memory barrier in the right place:
1322
1323        wait_event();
1324        wait_event_interruptible();
1325        wait_event_interruptible_exclusive();
1326        wait_event_interruptible_timeout();
1327        wait_event_killable();
1328        wait_event_timeout();
1329        wait_on_bit();
1330        wait_on_bit_lock();
1331
1332
1333Secondly, code that performs a wake up normally follows something like this:
1334
1335        event_indicated = 1;
1336        wake_up(&event_wait_queue);
1337
1338or:
1339
1340        event_indicated = 1;
1341        wake_up_process(event_daemon);
1342
1343A write memory barrier is implied by wake_up() and co. if and only if they wake
1344something up.  The barrier occurs before the task state is cleared, and so sits
1345between the STORE to indicate the event and the STORE to set TASK_RUNNING:
1346
1347        CPU 1                           CPU 2
1348        =============================== ===============================
1349        set_current_state();            STORE event_indicated
1350          set_mb();                     wake_up();
1351            STORE current->state          <write barrier>
1352            <general barrier>             STORE current->state
1353        LOAD event_indicated
1354
1355The available waker functions include:
1356
1357        complete();
1358        wake_up();
1359        wake_up_all();
1360        wake_up_bit();
1361        wake_up_interruptible();
1362        wake_up_interruptible_all();
1363        wake_up_interruptible_nr();
1364        wake_up_interruptible_poll();
1365        wake_up_interruptible_sync();
1366        wake_up_interruptible_sync_poll();
1367        wake_up_locked();
1368        wake_up_locked_poll();
1369        wake_up_nr();
1370        wake_up_poll();
1371        wake_up_process();
1372
1373
1374[!] Note that the memory barriers implied by the sleeper and the waker do _not_
1375order multiple stores before the wake-up with respect to loads of those stored
1376values after the sleeper has called set_current_state().  For instance, if the
1377sleeper does:
1378
1379        set_current_state(TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE);
1380        if (event_indicated)
1381                break;
1382        __set_current_state(TASK_RUNNING);
1383        do_something(my_data);
1384
1385and the waker does:
1386
1387        my_data = value;
1388        event_indicated = 1;
1389        wake_up(&event_wait_queue);
1390
1391there's no guarantee that the change to event_indicated will be perceived by
1392the sleeper as coming after the change to my_data.  In such a circumstance, the
1393code on both sides must interpolate its own memory barriers between the
1394separate data accesses.  Thus the above sleeper ought to do:
1395
1396        set_current_state(TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE);
1397        if (event_indicated) {
1398                smp_rmb();
1399                do_something(my_data);
1400        }
1401
1402and the waker should do:
1403
1404        my_data = value;
1405        smp_wmb();
1406        event_indicated = 1;
1407        wake_up(&event_wait_queue);
1408
1409
1410MISCELLANEOUS FUNCTIONS
1411-----------------------
1412
1413Other functions that imply barriers:
1414
1415 (*) schedule() and similar imply full memory barriers.
1416
1417
1418=================================
1419INTER-CPU LOCKING BARRIER EFFECTS
1420=================================
1421
1422On SMP systems locking primitives give a more substantial form of barrier: one
1423that does affect memory access ordering on other CPUs, within the context of
1424conflict on any particular lock.
1425
1426
1427LOCKS VS MEMORY ACCESSES
1428------------------------
1429
1430Consider the following: the system has a pair of spinlocks (M) and (Q), and
1431three CPUs; then should the following sequence of events occur:
1432
1433        CPU 1                           CPU 2
1434        =============================== ===============================
1435        *A = a;                         *E = e;
1436        LOCK M                          LOCK Q
1437        *B = b;                         *F = f;
1438        *C = c;                         *G = g;
1439        UNLOCK M                        UNLOCK Q
1440        *D = d;                         *H = h;
1441
1442Then there is no guarantee as to what order CPU 3 will see the accesses to *A
1443through *H occur in, other than the constraints imposed by the separate locks
1444on the separate CPUs. It might, for example, see:
1445
1446        *E, LOCK M, LOCK Q, *G, *C, *F, *A, *B, UNLOCK Q, *D, *H, UNLOCK M
1447
1448But it won't see any of:
1449
1450        *B, *C or *D preceding LOCK M
1451        *A, *B or *C following UNLOCK M
1452        *F, *G or *H preceding LOCK Q
1453        *E, *F or *G following UNLOCK Q
1454
1455
1456However, if the following occurs:
1457
1458        CPU 1                           CPU 2
1459        =============================== ===============================
1460        *A = a;
1461        LOCK M          [1]
1462        *B = b;
1463        *C = c;
1464        UNLOCK M        [1]
1465        *D = d;                         *E = e;
1466                                        LOCK M          [2]
1467                                        *F = f;
1468                                        *G = g;
1469                                        UNLOCK M        [2]
1470                                        *H = h;
1471
1472CPU 3 might see:
1473
1474        *E, LOCK M [1], *C, *B, *A, UNLOCK M [1],
1475                LOCK M [2], *H, *F, *G, UNLOCK M [2], *D
1476
1477But assuming CPU 1 gets the lock first, CPU 3 won't see any of:
1478
1479        *B, *C, *D, *F, *G or *H preceding LOCK M [1]
1480        *A, *B or *C following UNLOCK M [1]
1481        *F, *G or *H preceding LOCK M [2]
1482        *A, *B, *C, *E, *F or *G following UNLOCK M [2]
1483
1484
1485LOCKS VS I/O ACCESSES
1486---------------------
1487
1488Under certain circumstances (especially involving NUMA), I/O accesses within
1489two spinlocked sections on two different CPUs may be seen as interleaved by the
1490PCI bridge, because the PCI bridge does not necessarily participate in the
1491cache-coherence protocol, and is therefore incapable of issuing the required
1492read memory barriers.
1493
1494For example:
1495
1496        CPU 1                           CPU 2
1497        =============================== ===============================
1498        spin_lock(Q)
1499        writel(0, ADDR)
1500        writel(1, DATA);
1501        spin_unlock(Q);
1502                                        spin_lock(Q);
1503                                        writel(4, ADDR);
1504                                        writel(5, DATA);
1505                                        spin_unlock(Q);
1506
1507may be seen by the PCI bridge as follows:
1508
1509        STORE *ADDR = 0, STORE *ADDR = 4, STORE *DATA = 1, STORE *DATA = 5
1510
1511which would probably cause the hardware to malfunction.
1512
1513
1514What is necessary here is to intervene with an mmiowb() before dropping the
1515spinlock, for example:
1516
1517        CPU 1                           CPU 2
1518        =============================== ===============================
1519        spin_lock(Q)
1520        writel(0, ADDR)
1521        writel(1, DATA);
1522        mmiowb();
1523        spin_unlock(Q);
1524                                        spin_lock(Q);
1525                                        writel(4, ADDR);
1526                                        writel(5, DATA);
1527                                        mmiowb();
1528                                        spin_unlock(Q);
1529
1530this will ensure that the two stores issued on CPU 1 appear at the PCI bridge
1531before either of the stores issued on CPU 2.
1532
1533
1534Furthermore, following a store by a load from the same device obviates the need
1535for the mmiowb(), because the load forces the store to complete before the load
1536is performed:
1537
1538        CPU 1                           CPU 2
1539        =============================== ===============================
1540        spin_lock(Q)
1541        writel(0, ADDR)
1542        a = readl(DATA);
1543        spin_unlock(Q);
1544                                        spin_lock(Q);
1545                                        writel(4, ADDR);
1546                                        b = readl(DATA);
1547                                        spin_unlock(Q);
1548
1549
1550See Documentation/DocBook/deviceiobook.tmpl for more information.
1551
1552
1553=================================
1554WHERE ARE MEMORY BARRIERS NEEDED?
1555=================================
1556
1557Under normal operation, memory operation reordering is generally not going to
1558be a problem as a single-threaded linear piece of code will still appear to
1559work correctly, even if it's in an SMP kernel.  There are, however, four
1560circumstances in which reordering definitely _could_ be a problem:
1561
1562 (*) Interprocessor interaction.
1563
1564 (*) Atomic operations.
1565
1566 (*) Accessing devices.
1567
1568 (*) Interrupts.
1569
1570
1571INTERPROCESSOR INTERACTION
1572--------------------------
1573
1574When there's a system with more than one processor, more than one CPU in the
1575system may be working on the same data set at the same time.  This can cause
1576synchronisation problems, and the usual way of dealing with them is to use
1577locks.  Locks, however, are quite expensive, and so it may be preferable to
1578operate without the use of a lock if at all possible.  In such a case
1579operations that affect both CPUs may have to be carefully ordered to prevent
1580a malfunction.
1581
1582Consider, for example, the R/W semaphore slow path.  Here a waiting process is
1583queued on the semaphore, by virtue of it having a piece of its stack linked to
1584the semaphore's list of waiting processes:
1585
1586        struct rw_semaphore {
1587                ...
1588                spinlock_t lock;
1589                struct list_head waiters;
1590        };
1591
1592        struct rwsem_waiter {
1593                struct list_head list;
1594                struct task_struct *task;
1595        };
1596
1597To wake up a particular waiter, the up_read() or up_write() functions have to:
1598
1599 (1) read the next pointer from this waiter's record to know as to where the
1600     next waiter record is;
1601
1602 (2) read the pointer to the waiter's task structure;
1603
1604 (3) clear the task pointer to tell the waiter it has been given the semaphore;
1605
1606 (4) call wake_up_process() on the task; and
1607
1608 (5) release the reference held on the waiter's task struct.
1609
1610In other words, it has to perform this sequence of events:
1611
1612        LOAD waiter->list.next;
1613        LOAD waiter->task;
1614        STORE waiter->task;
1615        CALL wakeup
1616        RELEASE task
1617
1618and if any of these steps occur out of order, then the whole thing may
1619malfunction.
1620
1621Once it has queued itself and dropped the semaphore lock, the waiter does not
1622get the lock again; it instead just waits for its task pointer to be cleared
1623before proceeding.  Since the record is on the waiter's stack, this means that
1624if the task pointer is cleared _before_ the next pointer in the list is read,
1625another CPU might start processing the waiter and might clobber the waiter's
1626stack before the up*() function has a chance to read the next pointer.
1627
1628Consider then what might happen to the above sequence of events:
1629
1630        CPU 1                           CPU 2
1631        =============================== ===============================
1632                                        down_xxx()
1633                                        Queue waiter
1634                                        Sleep
1635        up_yyy()
1636        LOAD waiter->task;
1637        STORE waiter->task;
1638                                        Woken up by other event
1639        <preempt>
1640                                        Resume processing
1641                                        down_xxx() returns
1642                                        call foo()
1643                                        foo() clobbers *waiter
1644        </preempt>
1645        LOAD waiter->list.next;
1646        --- OOPS ---
1647
1648This could be dealt with using the semaphore lock, but then the down_xxx()
1649function has to needlessly get the spinlock again after being woken up.
1650
1651The way to deal with this is to insert a general SMP memory barrier:
1652
1653        LOAD waiter->list.next;
1654        LOAD waiter->task;
1655        smp_mb();
1656        STORE waiter->task;
1657        CALL wakeup
1658        RELEASE task
1659
1660In this case, the barrier makes a guarantee that all memory accesses before the
1661barrier will appear to happen before all the memory accesses after the barrier
1662with respect to the other CPUs on the system.  It does _not_ guarantee that all
1663the memory accesses before the barrier will be complete by the time the barrier
1664instruction itself is complete.
1665
1666On a UP system - where this wouldn't be a problem - the smp_mb() is just a
1667compiler barrier, thus making sure the compiler emits the instructions in the
1668right order without actually intervening in the CPU.  Since there's only one
1669CPU, that CPU's dependency ordering logic will take care of everything else.
1670
1671
1672ATOMIC OPERATIONS
1673-----------------
1674
1675Whilst they are technically interprocessor interaction considerations, atomic
1676operations are noted specially as some of them imply full memory barriers and
1677some don't, but they're very heavily relied on as a group throughout the
1678kernel.
1679
1680Any atomic operation that modifies some state in memory and returns information
1681about the state (old or new) implies an SMP-conditional general memory barrier
1682(smp_mb()) on each side of the actual operation (with the exception of
1683explicit lock operations, described later).  These include:
1684
1685        xchg();
1686        cmpxchg();
1687        atomic_cmpxchg();
1688        atomic_inc_return();
1689        atomic_dec_return();
1690        atomic_add_return();
1691        atomic_sub_return();
1692        atomic_inc_and_test();
1693        atomic_dec_and_test();
1694        atomic_sub_and_test();
1695        atomic_add_negative();
1696        atomic_add_unless();    /* when succeeds (returns 1) */
1697        test_and_set_bit();
1698        test_and_clear_bit();
1699        test_and_change_bit();
1700
1701These are used for such things as implementing LOCK-class and UNLOCK-class
1702operations and adjusting reference counters towards object destruction, and as
1703such the implicit memory barrier effects are necessary.
1704
1705
1706The following operations are potential problems as they do _not_ imply memory
1707barriers, but might be used for implementing such things as UNLOCK-class
1708operations:
1709
1710        atomic_set();
1711        set_bit();
1712        clear_bit();
1713        change_bit();
1714
1715With these the appropriate explicit memory barrier should be used if necessary
1716(smp_mb__before_clear_bit() for instance).
1717
1718
1719The following also do _not_ imply memory barriers, and so may require explicit
1720memory barriers under some circumstances (smp_mb__before_atomic_dec() for
1721instance):
1722
1723        atomic_add();
1724        atomic_sub();
1725        atomic_inc();
1726        atomic_dec();
1727
1728If they're used for statistics generation, then they probably don't need memory
1729barriers, unless there's a coupling between statistical data.
1730
1731If they're used for reference counting on an object to control its lifetime,
1732they probably don't need memory barriers because either the reference count
1733will be adjusted inside a locked section, or the caller will already hold
1734sufficient references to make the lock, and thus a memory barrier unnecessary.
1735
1736If they're used for constructing a lock of some description, then they probably
1737do need memory barriers as a lock primitive generally has to do things in a
1738specific order.
1739
1740Basically, each usage case has to be carefully considered as to whether memory
1741barriers are needed or not.
1742
1743The following operations are special locking primitives:
1744
1745        test_and_set_bit_lock();
1746        clear_bit_unlock();
1747        __clear_bit_unlock();
1748
1749These implement LOCK-class and UNLOCK-class operations. These should be used in
1750preference to other operations when implementing locking primitives, because
1751their implementations can be optimised on many architectures.
1752
1753[!] Note that special memory barrier primitives are available for these
1754situations because on some CPUs the atomic instructions used imply full memory
1755barriers, and so barrier instructions are superfluous in conjunction with them,
1756and in such cases the special barrier primitives will be no-ops.
1757
1758See Documentation/atomic_ops.txt for more information.
1759
1760
1761ACCESSING DEVICES
1762-----------------
1763
1764Many devices can be memory mapped, and so appear to the CPU as if they're just
1765a set of memory locations.  To control such a device, the driver usually has to
1766make the right memory accesses in exactly the right order.
1767
1768However, having a clever CPU or a clever compiler creates a potential problem
1769in that the carefully sequenced accesses in the driver code won't reach the
1770device in the requisite order if the CPU or the compiler thinks it is more
1771efficient to reorder, combine or merge accesses - something that would cause
1772the device to malfunction.
1773
1774Inside of the Linux kernel, I/O should be done through the appropriate accessor
1775routines - such as inb() or writel() - which know how to make such accesses
1776appropriately sequential.  Whilst this, for the most part, renders the explicit
1777use of memory barriers unnecessary, there are a couple of situations where they
1778might be needed:
1779
1780 (1) On some systems, I/O stores are not strongly ordered across all CPUs, and
1781     so for _all_ general drivers locks should be used and mmiowb() must be
1782     issued prior to unlocking the critical section.
1783
1784 (2) If the accessor functions are used to refer to an I/O memory window with
1785     relaxed memory access properties, then _mandatory_ memory barriers are
1786     required to enforce ordering.
1787
1788See Documentation/DocBook/deviceiobook.tmpl for more information.
1789
1790
1791INTERRUPTS
1792----------
1793
1794A driver may be interrupted by its own interrupt service routine, and thus the
1795two parts of the driver may interfere with each other's attempts to control or
1796access the device.
1797
1798This may be alleviated - at least in part - by disabling local interrupts (a
1799form of locking), such that the critical operations are all contained within
1800the interrupt-disabled section in the driver.  Whilst the driver's interrupt
1801routine is executing, the driver's core may not run on the same CPU, and its
1802interrupt is not permitted to happen again until the current interrupt has been
1803handled, thus the interrupt handler does not need to lock against that.
1804
1805However, consider a driver that was talking to an ethernet card that sports an
1806address register and a data register.  If that driver's core talks to the card
1807under interrupt-disablement and then the driver's interrupt handler is invoked:
1808
1809        LOCAL IRQ DISABLE
1810        writew(ADDR, 3);
1811        writew(DATA, y);
1812        LOCAL IRQ ENABLE
1813        <interrupt>
1814        writew(ADDR, 4);
1815        q = readw(DATA);
1816        </interrupt>
1817
1818The store to the data register might happen after the second store to the
1819address register if ordering rules are sufficiently relaxed:
1820
1821        STORE *ADDR = 3, STORE *ADDR = 4, STORE *DATA = y, q = LOAD *DATA
1822
1823
1824If ordering rules are relaxed, it must be assumed that accesses done inside an
1825interrupt disabled section may leak outside of it and may interleave with
1826accesses performed in an interrupt - and vice versa - unless implicit or
1827explicit barriers are used.
1828
1829Normally this won't be a problem because the I/O accesses done inside such
1830sections will include synchronous load operations on strictly ordered I/O
1831registers that form implicit I/O barriers. If this isn't sufficient then an
1832mmiowb() may need to be used explicitly.
1833
1834
1835A similar situation may occur between an interrupt routine and two routines
1836running on separate CPUs that communicate with each other. If such a case is
1837likely, then interrupt-disabling locks should be used to guarantee ordering.
1838
1839
1840==========================
1841KERNEL I/O BARRIER EFFECTS
1842==========================
1843
1844When accessing I/O memory, drivers should use the appropriate accessor
1845functions:
1846
1847 (*) inX(), outX():
1848
1849     These are intended to talk to I/O space rather than memory space, but
1850     that's primarily a CPU-specific concept. The i386 and x86_64 processors do
1851     indeed have special I/O space access cycles and instructions, but many
1852     CPUs don't have such a concept.
1853
1854     The PCI bus, amongst others, defines an I/O space concept which - on such
1855     CPUs as i386 and x86_64 - readily maps to the CPU's concept of I/O
1856     space.  However, it may also be mapped as a virtual I/O space in the CPU's
1857     memory map, particularly on those CPUs that don't support alternate I/O
1858     spaces.
1859
1860     Accesses to this space may be fully synchronous (as on i386), but
1861     intermediary bridges (such as the PCI host bridge) may not fully honour
1862     that.
1863
1864     They are guaranteed to be fully ordered with respect to each other.
1865
1866     They are not guaranteed to be fully ordered with respect to other types of
1867     memory and I/O operation.
1868
1869 (*) readX(), writeX():
1870
1871     Whether these are guaranteed to be fully ordered and uncombined with
1872     respect to each other on the issuing CPU depends on the characteristics
1873     defined for the memory window through which they're accessing. On later
1874     i386 architecture machines, for example, this is controlled by way of the
1875     MTRR registers.
1876
1877     Ordinarily, these will be guaranteed to be fully ordered and uncombined,
1878     provided they're not accessing a prefetchable device.
1879
1880     However, intermediary hardware (such as a PCI bridge) may indulge in
1881     deferral if it so wishes; to flush a store, a load from the same location
1882     is preferred[*], but a load from the same device or from configuration
1883     space should suffice for PCI.
1884
1885     [*] NOTE! attempting to load from the same location as was written to may
1886         cause a malfunction - consider the 16550 Rx/Tx serial registers for
1887         example.
1888
1889     Used with prefetchable I/O memory, an mmiowb() barrier may be required to
1890     force stores to be ordered.
1891
1892     Please refer to the PCI specification for more information on interactions
1893     between PCI transactions.
1894
1895 (*) readX_relaxed()
1896
1897     These are similar to readX(), but are not guaranteed to be ordered in any
1898     way. Be aware that there is no I/O read barrier available.
1899
1900 (*) ioreadX(), iowriteX()
1901
1902     These will perform appropriately for the type of access they're actually
1903     doing, be it inX()/outX() or readX()/writeX().
1904
1905
1906========================================
1907ASSUMED MINIMUM EXECUTION ORDERING MODEL
1908========================================
1909
1910It has to be assumed that the conceptual CPU is weakly-ordered but that it will
1911maintain the appearance of program causality with respect to itself.  Some CPUs
1912(such as i386 or x86_64) are more constrained than others (such as powerpc or
1913frv), and so the most relaxed case (namely DEC Alpha) must be assumed outside
1914of arch-specific code.
1915
1916This means that it must be considered that the CPU will execute its instruction
1917stream in any order it feels like - or even in parallel - provided that if an
1918instruction in the stream depends on an earlier instruction, then that
1919earlier instruction must be sufficiently complete[*] before the later
1920instruction may proceed; in other words: provided that the appearance of
1921causality is maintained.
1922
1923 [*] Some instructions have more than one effect - such as changing the
1924     condition codes, changing registers or changing memory - and different
1925     instructions may depend on different effects.
1926
1927A CPU may also discard any instruction sequence that winds up having no
1928ultimate effect.  For example, if two adjacent instructions both load an
1929immediate value into the same register, the first may be discarded.
1930
1931
1932Similarly, it has to be assumed that compiler might reorder the instruction
1933stream in any way it sees fit, again provided the appearance of causality is
1934maintained.
1935
1936
1937============================
1938THE EFFECTS OF THE CPU CACHE
1939============================
1940
1941The way cached memory operations are perceived across the system is affected to
1942a certain extent by the caches that lie between CPUs and memory, and by the
1943memory coherence system that maintains the consistency of state in the system.
1944
1945As far as the way a CPU interacts with another part of the system through the
1946caches goes, the memory system has to include the CPU's caches, and memory
1947barriers for the most part act at the interface between the CPU and its cache
1948(memory barriers logically act on the dotted line in the following diagram):
1949
1950            <--- CPU --->         :       <----------- Memory ----------->
1951                                  :
1952        +--------+    +--------+  :   +--------+    +-----------+
1953        |        |    |        |  :   |        |    |           |    +--------+
1954        |  CPU   |    | Memory |  :   | CPU    |    |           |    |        |
1955        |  Core  |--->| Access |----->| Cache  |<-->|           |    |        |
1956        |        |    | Queue  |  :   |        |    |           |--->| Memory |
1957        |        |    |        |  :   |        |    |           |    |        |
1958        +--------+    +--------+  :   +--------+    |           |    |        |
1959                                  :                 | Cache     |    +--------+
1960                                  :                 | Coherency |
1961                                  :                 | Mechanism |    +--------+
1962        +--------+    +--------+  :   +--------+    |           |    |        |
1963        |        |    |        |  :   |        |    |           |    |        |
1964        |  CPU   |    | Memory |  :   | CPU    |    |           |--->| Device |
1965        |  Core  |--->| Access |----->| Cache  |<-->|           |    |        |
1966        |        |    | Queue  |  :   |        |    |           |    |        |
1967        |        |    |        |  :   |        |    |           |    +--------+
1968        +--------+    +--------+  :   +--------+    +-----------+
1969                                  :
1970                                  :
1971
1972Although any particular load or store may not actually appear outside of the
1973CPU that issued it since it may have been satisfied within the CPU's own cache,
1974it will still appear as if the full memory access had taken place as far as the
1975other CPUs are concerned since the cache coherency mechanisms will migrate the
1976cacheline over to the accessing CPU and propagate the effects upon conflict.
1977
1978The CPU core may execute instructions in any order it deems fit, provided the
1979expected program causality appears to be maintained.  Some of the instructions
1980generate load and store operations which then go into the queue of memory
1981accesses to be performed.  The core may place these in the queue in any order
1982it wishes, and continue execution until it is forced to wait for an instruction
1983to complete.
1984
1985What memory barriers are concerned with is controlling the order in which
1986accesses cross from the CPU side of things to the memory side of things, and
1987the order in which the effects are perceived to happen by the other observers
1988in the system.
1989
1990[!] Memory barriers are _not_ needed within a given CPU, as CPUs always see
1991their own loads and stores as if they had happened in program order.
1992
1993[!] MMIO or other device accesses may bypass the cache system.  This depends on
1994the properties of the memory window through which devices are accessed and/or
1995the use of any special device communication instructions the CPU may have.
1996
1997
1998CACHE COHERENCY
1999---------------
2000
2001Life isn't quite as simple as it may appear above, however: for while the
2002caches are expected to be coherent, there's no guarantee that that coherency
2003will be ordered.  This means that whilst changes made on one CPU will
2004eventually become visible on all CPUs, there's no guarantee that they will
2005become apparent in the same order on those other CPUs.
2006
2007
2008Consider dealing with a system that has a pair of CPUs (1 & 2), each of which
2009has a pair of parallel data caches (CPU 1 has A/B, and CPU 2 has C/D):
2010
2011                    :
2012                    :                          +--------+
2013                    :      +---------+         |        |
2014        +--------+  : +--->| Cache A |<------->|        |
2015        |        |  : |    +---------+         |        |
2016        |  CPU 1 |<---+                        |        |
2017        |        |  : |    +---------+         |        |
2018        +--------+  : +--->| Cache B |<------->|        |
2019                    :      +---------+         |        |
2020                    :                          | Memory |
2021                    :      +---------+         | System |
2022        +--------+  : +--->| Cache C |<------->|        |
2023        |        |  : |    +---------+         |        |
2024        |  CPU 2 |<---+                        |        |
2025        |        |  : |    +---------+         |        |
2026        +--------+  : +--->| Cache D |<------->|        |
2027                    :      +---------+         |        |
2028                    :                          +--------+
2029                    :
2030
2031Imagine the system has the following properties:
2032
2033 (*) an odd-numbered cache line may be in cache A, cache C or it may still be
2034     resident in memory;
2035
2036 (*) an even-numbered cache line may be in cache B, cache D or it may still be
2037     resident in memory;
2038
2039 (*) whilst the CPU core is interrogating one cache, the other cache may be
2040     making use of the bus to access the rest of the system - perhaps to
2041     displace a dirty cacheline or to do a speculative load;
2042
2043 (*) each cache has a queue of operations that need to be applied to that cache
2044     to maintain coherency with the rest of the system;
2045
2046 (*) the coherency queue is not flushed by normal loads to lines already
2047     present in the cache, even though the contents of the queue may
2048     potentially affect those loads.
2049
2050Imagine, then, that two writes are made on the first CPU, with a write barrier
2051between them to guarantee that they will appear to reach that CPU's caches in
2052the requisite order:
2053
2054        CPU 1           CPU 2           COMMENT
2055        =============== =============== =======================================
2056                                        u == 0, v == 1 and p == &u, q == &u
2057        v = 2;
2058        smp_wmb();                      Make sure change to v is visible before
2059                                         change to p
2060        <A:modify v=2>                  v is now in cache A exclusively
2061        p = &v;
2062        <B:modify p=&v>                 p is now in cache B exclusively
2063
2064The write memory barrier forces the other CPUs in the system to perceive that
2065the local CPU's caches have apparently been updated in the correct order.  But
2066now imagine that the second CPU wants to read those values:
2067
2068        CPU 1           CPU 2           COMMENT
2069        =============== =============== =======================================
2070        ...
2071                        q = p;
2072                        x = *q;
2073
2074The above pair of reads may then fail to happen in the expected order, as the
2075cacheline holding p may get updated in one of the second CPU's caches whilst
2076the update to the cacheline holding v is delayed in the other of the second
2077CPU's caches by some other cache event:
2078
2079        CPU 1           CPU 2           COMMENT
2080        =============== =============== =======================================
2081                                        u == 0, v == 1 and p == &u, q == &u
2082        v = 2;
2083        smp_wmb();
2084        <A:modify v=2>  <C:busy>
2085                        <C:queue v=2>
2086        p = &v;         q = p;
2087                        <D:request p>
2088        <B:modify p=&v> <D:commit p=&v>
2089                        <D:read p>
2090                        x = *q;
2091                        <C:read *q>     Reads from v before v updated in cache
2092                        <C:unbusy>
2093                        <C:commit v=2>
2094
2095Basically, whilst both cachelines will be updated on CPU 2 eventually, there's
2096no guarantee that, without intervention, the order of update will be the same
2097as that committed on CPU 1.
2098
2099
2100To intervene, we need to interpolate a data dependency barrier or a read
2101barrier between the loads.  This will force the cache to commit its coherency
2102queue before processing any further requests:
2103
2104        CPU 1           CPU 2           COMMENT
2105        =============== =============== =======================================
2106                                        u == 0, v == 1 and p == &u, q == &u
2107        v = 2;
2108        smp_wmb();
2109        <A:modify v=2>  <C:busy>
2110                        <C:queue v=2>
2111        p = &v;         q = p;
2112                        <D:request p>
2113        <B:modify p=&v> <D:commit p=&v>
2114                        <D:read p>
2115                        smp_read_barrier_depends()
2116                        <C:unbusy>
2117                        <C:commit v=2>
2118                        x = *q;
2119                        <C:read *q>     Reads from v after v updated in cache
2120
2121
2122This sort of problem can be encountered on DEC Alpha processors as they have a
2123split cache that improves performance by making better use of the data bus.
2124Whilst most CPUs do imply a data dependency barrier on the read when a memory
2125access depends on a read, not all do, so it may not be relied on.
2126
2127Other CPUs may also have split caches, but must coordinate between the various
2128cachelets for normal memory accesses.  The semantics of the Alpha removes the
2129need for coordination in the absence of memory barriers.
2130
2131
2132CACHE COHERENCY VS DMA
2133----------------------
2134
2135Not all systems maintain cache coherency with respect to devices doing DMA.  In
2136such cases, a device attempting DMA may obtain stale data from RAM because
2137dirty cache lines may be resident in the caches of various CPUs, and may not
2138have been written back to RAM yet.  To deal with this, the appropriate part of
2139the kernel must flush the overlapping bits of cache on each CPU (and maybe
2140invalidate them as well).
2141
2142In addition, the data DMA'd to RAM by a device may be overwritten by dirty
2143cache lines being written back to RAM from a CPU's cache after the device has
2144installed its own data, or cache lines present in the CPU's cache may simply
2145obscure the fact that RAM has been updated, until at such time as the cacheline
2146is discarded from the CPU's cache and reloaded.  To deal with this, the
2147appropriate part of the kernel must invalidate the overlapping bits of the
2148cache on each CPU.
2149
2150See Documentation/cachetlb.txt for more information on cache management.
2151
2152
2153CACHE COHERENCY VS MMIO
2154-----------------------
2155
2156Memory mapped I/O usually takes place through memory locations that are part of
2157a window in the CPU's memory space that has different properties assigned than
2158the usual RAM directed window.
2159
2160Amongst these properties is usually the fact that such accesses bypass the
2161caching entirely and go directly to the device buses.  This means MMIO accesses
2162may, in effect, overtake accesses to cached memory that were emitted earlier.
2163A memory barrier isn't sufficient in such a case, but rather the cache must be
2164flushed between the cached memory write and the MMIO access if the two are in
2165any way dependent.
2166
2167
2168=========================
2169THE THINGS CPUS GET UP TO
2170=========================
2171
2172A programmer might take it for granted that the CPU will perform memory
2173operations in exactly the order specified, so that if the CPU is, for example,
2174given the following piece of code to execute:
2175
2176        a = *A;
2177        *B = b;
2178        c = *C;
2179        d = *D;
2180        *E = e;
2181
2182they would then expect that the CPU will complete the memory operation for each
2183instruction before moving on to the next one, leading to a definite sequence of
2184operations as seen by external observers in the system:
2185
2186        LOAD *A, STORE *B, LOAD *C, LOAD *D, STORE *E.
2187
2188
2189Reality is, of course, much messier.  With many CPUs and compilers, the above
2190assumption doesn't hold because:
2191
2192 (*) loads are more likely to need to be completed immediately to permit
2193     execution progress, whereas stores can often be deferred without a
2194     problem;
2195
2196 (*) loads may be done speculatively, and the result discarded should it prove
2197     to have been unnecessary;
2198
2199 (*) loads may be done speculatively, leading to the result having been fetched
2200     at the wrong time in the expected sequence of events;
2201
2202 (*) the order of the memory accesses may be rearranged to promote better use
2203     of the CPU buses and caches;
2204
2205 (*) loads and stores may be combined to improve performance when talking to
2206     memory or I/O hardware that can do batched accesses of adjacent locations,
2207     thus cutting down on transaction setup costs (memory and PCI devices may
2208     both be able to do this); and
2209
2210 (*) the CPU's data cache may affect the ordering, and whilst cache-coherency
2211     mechanisms may alleviate this - once the store has actually hit the cache
2212     - there's no guarantee that the coherency management will be propagated in
2213     order to other CPUs.
2214
2215So what another CPU, say, might actually observe from the above piece of code
2216is:
2217
2218        LOAD *A, ..., LOAD {*C,*D}, STORE *E, STORE *B
2219
2220        (Where "LOAD {*C,*D}" is a combined load)
2221
2222
2223However, it is guaranteed that a CPU will be self-consistent: it will see its
2224_own_ accesses appear to be correctly ordered, without the need for a memory
2225barrier.  For instance with the following code:
2226
2227        U = *A;
2228        *A = V;
2229        *A = W;
2230        X = *A;
2231        *A = Y;
2232        Z = *A;
2233
2234and assuming no intervention by an external influence, it can be assumed that
2235the final result will appear to be:
2236
2237        U == the original value of *A
2238        X == W
2239        Z == Y
2240        *A == Y
2241
2242The code above may cause the CPU to generate the full sequence of memory
2243accesses:
2244
2245        U=LOAD *A, STORE *A=V, STORE *A=W, X=LOAD *A, STORE *A=Y, Z=LOAD *A
2246
2247in that order, but, without intervention, the sequence may have almost any
2248combination of elements combined or discarded, provided the program's view of
2249the world remains consistent.
2250
2251The compiler may also combine, discard or defer elements of the sequence before
2252the CPU even sees them.
2253
2254For instance:
2255
2256        *A = V;
2257        *A = W;
2258
2259may be reduced to:
2260
2261        *A = W;
2262
2263since, without a write barrier, it can be assumed that the effect of the
2264storage of V to *A is lost.  Similarly:
2265
2266        *A = Y;
2267        Z = *A;
2268
2269may, without a memory barrier, be reduced to:
2270
2271        *A = Y;
2272        Z = Y;
2273
2274and the LOAD operation never appear outside of the CPU.
2275
2276
2277AND THEN THERE'S THE ALPHA
2278--------------------------
2279
2280The DEC Alpha CPU is one of the most relaxed CPUs there is.  Not only that,
2281some versions of the Alpha CPU have a split data cache, permitting them to have
2282two semantically-related cache lines updated at separate times.  This is where
2283the data dependency barrier really becomes necessary as this synchronises both
2284caches with the memory coherence system, thus making it seem like pointer
2285changes vs new data occur in the right order.
2286
2287The Alpha defines the Linux kernel's memory barrier model.
2288
2289See the subsection on "Cache Coherency" above.
2290
2291
2292============
2293EXAMPLE USES
2294============
2295
2296CIRCULAR BUFFERS
2297----------------
2298
2299Memory barriers can be used to implement circular buffering without the need
2300of a lock to serialise the producer with the consumer.  See:
2301
2302        Documentation/circular-buffers.txt
2303
2304for details.
2305
2306
2307==========
2308REFERENCES
2309==========
2310
2311Alpha AXP Architecture Reference Manual, Second Edition (Sites & Witek,
2312Digital Press)
2313        Chapter 5.2: Physical Address Space Characteristics
2314        Chapter 5.4: Caches and Write Buffers
2315        Chapter 5.5: Data Sharing
2316        Chapter 5.6: Read/Write Ordering
2317
2318AMD64 Architecture Programmer's Manual Volume 2: System Programming
2319        Chapter 7.1: Memory-Access Ordering
2320        Chapter 7.4: Buffering and Combining Memory Writes
2321
2322IA-32 Intel Architecture Software Developer's Manual, Volume 3:
2323System Programming Guide
2324        Chapter 7.1: Locked Atomic Operations
2325        Chapter 7.2: Memory Ordering
2326        Chapter 7.4: Serializing Instructions
2327
2328The SPARC Architecture Manual, Version 9
2329        Chapter 8: Memory Models
2330        Appendix D: Formal Specification of the Memory Models
2331        Appendix J: Programming with the Memory Models
2332
2333UltraSPARC Programmer Reference Manual
2334        Chapter 5: Memory Accesses and Cacheability
2335        Chapter 15: Sparc-V9 Memory Models
2336
2337UltraSPARC III Cu User's Manual
2338        Chapter 9: Memory Models
2339
2340UltraSPARC IIIi Processor User's Manual
2341        Chapter 8: Memory Models
2342
2343UltraSPARC Architecture 2005
2344        Chapter 9: Memory
2345        Appendix D: Formal Specifications of the Memory Models
2346
2347UltraSPARC T1 Supplement to the UltraSPARC Architecture 2005
2348        Chapter 8: Memory Models
2349        Appendix F: Caches and Cache Coherency
2350
2351Solaris Internals, Core Kernel Architecture, p63-68:
2352        Chapter 3.3: Hardware Considerations for Locks and
2353                        Synchronization
2354
2355Unix Systems for Modern Architectures, Symmetric Multiprocessing and Caching
2356for Kernel Programmers:
2357        Chapter 13: Other Memory Models
2358
2359Intel Itanium Architecture Software Developer's Manual: Volume 1:
2360        Section 2.6: Speculation
2361        Section 4.4: Memory Access
2362