1 ============================
2 LINUX KERNEL MEMORY BARRIERS
3 ============================
5 By: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
6 Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.ibm.com>
7 Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
8 Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
14 This document is not a specification; it is intentionally (for the sake of
15 brevity) and unintentionally (due to being human) incomplete. This document is
16 meant as a guide to using the various memory barriers provided by Linux, but
17 in case of any doubt (and there are many) please ask. Some doubts may be
18 resolved by referring to the formal memory consistency model and related
19 documentation at tools/memory-model/. Nevertheless, even this memory
20 model should be viewed as the collective opinion of its maintainers rather
21 than as an infallible oracle.
23 To repeat, this document is not a specification of what Linux expects from
26 The purpose of this document is twofold:
28 (1) to specify the minimum functionality that one can rely on for any
29 particular barrier, and
31 (2) to provide a guide as to how to use the barriers that are available.
33 Note that an architecture can provide more than the minimum requirement
34 for any particular barrier, but if the architecture provides less than
35 that, that architecture is incorrect.
37 Note also that it is possible that a barrier may be a no-op for an
38 architecture because the way that arch works renders an explicit barrier
39 unnecessary in that case.
46 (*) Abstract memory access model.
51 (*) What are memory barriers?
53 - Varieties of memory barrier.
54 - What may not be assumed about memory barriers?
55 - Data dependency barriers (historical).
56 - Control dependencies.
57 - SMP barrier pairing.
58 - Examples of memory barrier sequences.
59 - Read memory barriers vs load speculation.
60 - Multicopy atomicity.
62 (*) Explicit kernel barriers.
65 - CPU memory barriers.
67 (*) Implicit kernel memory barriers.
69 - Lock acquisition functions.
70 - Interrupt disabling functions.
71 - Sleep and wake-up functions.
72 - Miscellaneous functions.
74 (*) Inter-CPU acquiring barrier effects.
76 - Acquires vs memory accesses.
78 (*) Where are memory barriers needed?
80 - Interprocessor interaction.
85 (*) Kernel I/O barrier effects.
87 (*) Assumed minimum execution ordering model.
89 (*) The effects of the cpu cache.
92 - Cache coherency vs DMA.
93 - Cache coherency vs MMIO.
95 (*) The things CPUs get up to.
97 - And then there's the Alpha.
98 - Virtual Machine Guests.
107 ============================
108 ABSTRACT MEMORY ACCESS MODEL
109 ============================
111 Consider the following abstract model of the system:
116 +-------+ : +--------+ : +-------+
119 | CPU 1 |<----->| Memory |<----->| CPU 2 |
122 +-------+ : +--------+ : +-------+
130 +---------->| Device |<----------+
136 Each CPU executes a program that generates memory access operations. In the
137 abstract CPU, memory operation ordering is very relaxed, and a CPU may actually
138 perform the memory operations in any order it likes, provided program causality
139 appears to be maintained. Similarly, the compiler may also arrange the
140 instructions it emits in any order it likes, provided it doesn't affect the
141 apparent operation of the program.
143 So in the above diagram, the effects of the memory operations performed by a
144 CPU are perceived by the rest of the system as the operations cross the
145 interface between the CPU and rest of the system (the dotted lines).
148 For example, consider the following sequence of events:
151 =============== ===============
156 The set of accesses as seen by the memory system in the middle can be arranged
157 in 24 different combinations:
159 STORE A=3, STORE B=4, y=LOAD A->3, x=LOAD B->4
160 STORE A=3, STORE B=4, x=LOAD B->4, y=LOAD A->3
161 STORE A=3, y=LOAD A->3, STORE B=4, x=LOAD B->4
162 STORE A=3, y=LOAD A->3, x=LOAD B->2, STORE B=4
163 STORE A=3, x=LOAD B->2, STORE B=4, y=LOAD A->3
164 STORE A=3, x=LOAD B->2, y=LOAD A->3, STORE B=4
165 STORE B=4, STORE A=3, y=LOAD A->3, x=LOAD B->4
169 and can thus result in four different combinations of values:
177 Furthermore, the stores committed by a CPU to the memory system may not be
178 perceived by the loads made by another CPU in the same order as the stores were
182 As a further example, consider this sequence of events:
185 =============== ===============
186 { A == 1, B == 2, C == 3, P == &A, Q == &C }
190 There is an obvious data dependency here, as the value loaded into D depends on
191 the address retrieved from P by CPU 2. At the end of the sequence, any of the
192 following results are possible:
194 (Q == &A) and (D == 1)
195 (Q == &B) and (D == 2)
196 (Q == &B) and (D == 4)
198 Note that CPU 2 will never try and load C into D because the CPU will load P
199 into Q before issuing the load of *Q.
205 Some devices present their control interfaces as collections of memory
206 locations, but the order in which the control registers are accessed is very
207 important. For instance, imagine an ethernet card with a set of internal
208 registers that are accessed through an address port register (A) and a data
209 port register (D). To read internal register 5, the following code might then
215 but this might show up as either of the following two sequences:
217 STORE *A = 5, x = LOAD *D
218 x = LOAD *D, STORE *A = 5
220 the second of which will almost certainly result in a malfunction, since it set
221 the address _after_ attempting to read the register.
227 There are some minimal guarantees that may be expected of a CPU:
229 (*) On any given CPU, dependent memory accesses will be issued in order, with
230 respect to itself. This means that for:
232 Q = READ_ONCE(P); D = READ_ONCE(*Q);
234 the CPU will issue the following memory operations:
236 Q = LOAD P, D = LOAD *Q
238 and always in that order. However, on DEC Alpha, READ_ONCE() also
239 emits a memory-barrier instruction, so that a DEC Alpha CPU will
240 instead issue the following memory operations:
242 Q = LOAD P, MEMORY_BARRIER, D = LOAD *Q, MEMORY_BARRIER
244 Whether on DEC Alpha or not, the READ_ONCE() also prevents compiler
247 (*) Overlapping loads and stores within a particular CPU will appear to be
248 ordered within that CPU. This means that for:
250 a = READ_ONCE(*X); WRITE_ONCE(*X, b);
252 the CPU will only issue the following sequence of memory operations:
254 a = LOAD *X, STORE *X = b
258 WRITE_ONCE(*X, c); d = READ_ONCE(*X);
260 the CPU will only issue:
262 STORE *X = c, d = LOAD *X
264 (Loads and stores overlap if they are targeted at overlapping pieces of
267 And there are a number of things that _must_ or _must_not_ be assumed:
269 (*) It _must_not_ be assumed that the compiler will do what you want
270 with memory references that are not protected by READ_ONCE() and
271 WRITE_ONCE(). Without them, the compiler is within its rights to
272 do all sorts of "creative" transformations, which are covered in
273 the COMPILER BARRIER section.
275 (*) It _must_not_ be assumed that independent loads and stores will be issued
276 in the order given. This means that for:
278 X = *A; Y = *B; *D = Z;
280 we may get any of the following sequences:
282 X = LOAD *A, Y = LOAD *B, STORE *D = Z
283 X = LOAD *A, STORE *D = Z, Y = LOAD *B
284 Y = LOAD *B, X = LOAD *A, STORE *D = Z
285 Y = LOAD *B, STORE *D = Z, X = LOAD *A
286 STORE *D = Z, X = LOAD *A, Y = LOAD *B
287 STORE *D = Z, Y = LOAD *B, X = LOAD *A
289 (*) It _must_ be assumed that overlapping memory accesses may be merged or
290 discarded. This means that for:
292 X = *A; Y = *(A + 4);
294 we may get any one of the following sequences:
296 X = LOAD *A; Y = LOAD *(A + 4);
297 Y = LOAD *(A + 4); X = LOAD *A;
298 {X, Y} = LOAD {*A, *(A + 4) };
302 *A = X; *(A + 4) = Y;
306 STORE *A = X; STORE *(A + 4) = Y;
307 STORE *(A + 4) = Y; STORE *A = X;
308 STORE {*A, *(A + 4) } = {X, Y};
310 And there are anti-guarantees:
312 (*) These guarantees do not apply to bitfields, because compilers often
313 generate code to modify these using non-atomic read-modify-write
314 sequences. Do not attempt to use bitfields to synchronize parallel
317 (*) Even in cases where bitfields are protected by locks, all fields
318 in a given bitfield must be protected by one lock. If two fields
319 in a given bitfield are protected by different locks, the compiler's
320 non-atomic read-modify-write sequences can cause an update to one
321 field to corrupt the value of an adjacent field.
323 (*) These guarantees apply only to properly aligned and sized scalar
324 variables. "Properly sized" currently means variables that are
325 the same size as "char", "short", "int" and "long". "Properly
326 aligned" means the natural alignment, thus no constraints for
327 "char", two-byte alignment for "short", four-byte alignment for
328 "int", and either four-byte or eight-byte alignment for "long",
329 on 32-bit and 64-bit systems, respectively. Note that these
330 guarantees were introduced into the C11 standard, so beware when
331 using older pre-C11 compilers (for example, gcc 4.6). The portion
332 of the standard containing this guarantee is Section 3.14, which
333 defines "memory location" as follows:
336 either an object of scalar type, or a maximal sequence
337 of adjacent bit-fields all having nonzero width
339 NOTE 1: Two threads of execution can update and access
340 separate memory locations without interfering with
343 NOTE 2: A bit-field and an adjacent non-bit-field member
344 are in separate memory locations. The same applies
345 to two bit-fields, if one is declared inside a nested
346 structure declaration and the other is not, or if the two
347 are separated by a zero-length bit-field declaration,
348 or if they are separated by a non-bit-field member
349 declaration. It is not safe to concurrently update two
350 bit-fields in the same structure if all members declared
351 between them are also bit-fields, no matter what the
352 sizes of those intervening bit-fields happen to be.
355 =========================
356 WHAT ARE MEMORY BARRIERS?
357 =========================
359 As can be seen above, independent memory operations are effectively performed
360 in random order, but this can be a problem for CPU-CPU interaction and for I/O.
361 What is required is some way of intervening to instruct the compiler and the
362 CPU to restrict the order.
364 Memory barriers are such interventions. They impose a perceived partial
365 ordering over the memory operations on either side of the barrier.
367 Such enforcement is important because the CPUs and other devices in a system
368 can use a variety of tricks to improve performance, including reordering,
369 deferral and combination of memory operations; speculative loads; speculative
370 branch prediction and various types of caching. Memory barriers are used to
371 override or suppress these tricks, allowing the code to sanely control the
372 interaction of multiple CPUs and/or devices.
375 VARIETIES OF MEMORY BARRIER
376 ---------------------------
378 Memory barriers come in four basic varieties:
380 (1) Write (or store) memory barriers.
382 A write memory barrier gives a guarantee that all the STORE operations
383 specified before the barrier will appear to happen before all the STORE
384 operations specified after the barrier with respect to the other
385 components of the system.
387 A write barrier is a partial ordering on stores only; it is not required
388 to have any effect on loads.
390 A CPU can be viewed as committing a sequence of store operations to the
391 memory system as time progresses. All stores _before_ a write barrier
392 will occur _before_ all the stores after the write barrier.
394 [!] Note that write barriers should normally be paired with read or data
395 dependency barriers; see the "SMP barrier pairing" subsection.
398 (2) Data dependency barriers.
400 A data dependency barrier is a weaker form of read barrier. In the case
401 where two loads are performed such that the second depends on the result
402 of the first (eg: the first load retrieves the address to which the second
403 load will be directed), a data dependency barrier would be required to
404 make sure that the target of the second load is updated after the address
405 obtained by the first load is accessed.
407 A data dependency barrier is a partial ordering on interdependent loads
408 only; it is not required to have any effect on stores, independent loads
409 or overlapping loads.
411 As mentioned in (1), the other CPUs in the system can be viewed as
412 committing sequences of stores to the memory system that the CPU being
413 considered can then perceive. A data dependency barrier issued by the CPU
414 under consideration guarantees that for any load preceding it, if that
415 load touches one of a sequence of stores from another CPU, then by the
416 time the barrier completes, the effects of all the stores prior to that
417 touched by the load will be perceptible to any loads issued after the data
420 See the "Examples of memory barrier sequences" subsection for diagrams
421 showing the ordering constraints.
423 [!] Note that the first load really has to have a _data_ dependency and
424 not a control dependency. If the address for the second load is dependent
425 on the first load, but the dependency is through a conditional rather than
426 actually loading the address itself, then it's a _control_ dependency and
427 a full read barrier or better is required. See the "Control dependencies"
428 subsection for more information.
430 [!] Note that data dependency barriers should normally be paired with
431 write barriers; see the "SMP barrier pairing" subsection.
434 (3) Read (or load) memory barriers.
436 A read barrier is a data dependency barrier plus a guarantee that all the
437 LOAD operations specified before the barrier will appear to happen before
438 all the LOAD operations specified after the barrier with respect to the
439 other components of the system.
441 A read barrier is a partial ordering on loads only; it is not required to
442 have any effect on stores.
444 Read memory barriers imply data dependency barriers, and so can substitute
447 [!] Note that read barriers should normally be paired with write barriers;
448 see the "SMP barrier pairing" subsection.
451 (4) General memory barriers.
453 A general memory barrier gives a guarantee that all the LOAD and STORE
454 operations specified before the barrier will appear to happen before all
455 the LOAD and STORE operations specified after the barrier with respect to
456 the other components of the system.
458 A general memory barrier is a partial ordering over both loads and stores.
460 General memory barriers imply both read and write memory barriers, and so
461 can substitute for either.
464 And a couple of implicit varieties:
466 (5) ACQUIRE operations.
468 This acts as a one-way permeable barrier. It guarantees that all memory
469 operations after the ACQUIRE operation will appear to happen after the
470 ACQUIRE operation with respect to the other components of the system.
471 ACQUIRE operations include LOCK operations and both smp_load_acquire()
472 and smp_cond_load_acquire() operations.
474 Memory operations that occur before an ACQUIRE operation may appear to
475 happen after it completes.
477 An ACQUIRE operation should almost always be paired with a RELEASE
481 (6) RELEASE operations.
483 This also acts as a one-way permeable barrier. It guarantees that all
484 memory operations before the RELEASE operation will appear to happen
485 before the RELEASE operation with respect to the other components of the
486 system. RELEASE operations include UNLOCK operations and
487 smp_store_release() operations.
489 Memory operations that occur after a RELEASE operation may appear to
490 happen before it completes.
492 The use of ACQUIRE and RELEASE operations generally precludes the need
493 for other sorts of memory barrier. In addition, a RELEASE+ACQUIRE pair is
494 -not- guaranteed to act as a full memory barrier. However, after an
495 ACQUIRE on a given variable, all memory accesses preceding any prior
496 RELEASE on that same variable are guaranteed to be visible. In other
497 words, within a given variable's critical section, all accesses of all
498 previous critical sections for that variable are guaranteed to have
501 This means that ACQUIRE acts as a minimal "acquire" operation and
502 RELEASE acts as a minimal "release" operation.
504 A subset of the atomic operations described in atomic_t.txt have ACQUIRE and
505 RELEASE variants in addition to fully-ordered and relaxed (no barrier
506 semantics) definitions. For compound atomics performing both a load and a
507 store, ACQUIRE semantics apply only to the load and RELEASE semantics apply
508 only to the store portion of the operation.
510 Memory barriers are only required where there's a possibility of interaction
511 between two CPUs or between a CPU and a device. If it can be guaranteed that
512 there won't be any such interaction in any particular piece of code, then
513 memory barriers are unnecessary in that piece of code.
516 Note that these are the _minimum_ guarantees. Different architectures may give
517 more substantial guarantees, but they may _not_ be relied upon outside of arch
521 WHAT MAY NOT BE ASSUMED ABOUT MEMORY BARRIERS?
522 ----------------------------------------------
524 There are certain things that the Linux kernel memory barriers do not guarantee:
526 (*) There is no guarantee that any of the memory accesses specified before a
527 memory barrier will be _complete_ by the completion of a memory barrier
528 instruction; the barrier can be considered to draw a line in that CPU's
529 access queue that accesses of the appropriate type may not cross.
531 (*) There is no guarantee that issuing a memory barrier on one CPU will have
532 any direct effect on another CPU or any other hardware in the system. The
533 indirect effect will be the order in which the second CPU sees the effects
534 of the first CPU's accesses occur, but see the next point:
536 (*) There is no guarantee that a CPU will see the correct order of effects
537 from a second CPU's accesses, even _if_ the second CPU uses a memory
538 barrier, unless the first CPU _also_ uses a matching memory barrier (see
539 the subsection on "SMP Barrier Pairing").
541 (*) There is no guarantee that some intervening piece of off-the-CPU
542 hardware[*] will not reorder the memory accesses. CPU cache coherency
543 mechanisms should propagate the indirect effects of a memory barrier
544 between CPUs, but might not do so in order.
546 [*] For information on bus mastering DMA and coherency please read:
548 Documentation/driver-api/pci/pci.rst
549 Documentation/DMA-API-HOWTO.txt
550 Documentation/DMA-API.txt
553 DATA DEPENDENCY BARRIERS (HISTORICAL)
554 -------------------------------------
556 As of v4.15 of the Linux kernel, an smp_mb() was added to READ_ONCE() for
557 DEC Alpha, which means that about the only people who need to pay attention
558 to this section are those working on DEC Alpha architecture-specific code
559 and those working on READ_ONCE() itself. For those who need it, and for
560 those who are interested in the history, here is the story of
561 data-dependency barriers.
563 The usage requirements of data dependency barriers are a little subtle, and
564 it's not always obvious that they're needed. To illustrate, consider the
565 following sequence of events:
568 =============== ===============
569 { A == 1, B == 2, C == 3, P == &A, Q == &C }
576 There's a clear data dependency here, and it would seem that by the end of the
577 sequence, Q must be either &A or &B, and that:
579 (Q == &A) implies (D == 1)
580 (Q == &B) implies (D == 4)
582 But! CPU 2's perception of P may be updated _before_ its perception of B, thus
583 leading to the following situation:
585 (Q == &B) and (D == 2) ????
587 While this may seem like a failure of coherency or causality maintenance, it
588 isn't, and this behaviour can be observed on certain real CPUs (such as the DEC
591 To deal with this, a data dependency barrier or better must be inserted
592 between the address load and the data load:
595 =============== ===============
596 { A == 1, B == 2, C == 3, P == &A, Q == &C }
601 <data dependency barrier>
604 This enforces the occurrence of one of the two implications, and prevents the
605 third possibility from arising.
608 [!] Note that this extremely counterintuitive situation arises most easily on
609 machines with split caches, so that, for example, one cache bank processes
610 even-numbered cache lines and the other bank processes odd-numbered cache
611 lines. The pointer P might be stored in an odd-numbered cache line, and the
612 variable B might be stored in an even-numbered cache line. Then, if the
613 even-numbered bank of the reading CPU's cache is extremely busy while the
614 odd-numbered bank is idle, one can see the new value of the pointer P (&B),
615 but the old value of the variable B (2).
618 A data-dependency barrier is not required to order dependent writes
619 because the CPUs that the Linux kernel supports don't do writes
620 until they are certain (1) that the write will actually happen, (2)
621 of the location of the write, and (3) of the value to be written.
622 But please carefully read the "CONTROL DEPENDENCIES" section and the
623 Documentation/RCU/rcu_dereference.rst file: The compiler can and does
624 break dependencies in a great many highly creative ways.
627 =============== ===============
628 { A == 1, B == 2, C = 3, P == &A, Q == &C }
635 Therefore, no data-dependency barrier is required to order the read into
636 Q with the store into *Q. In other words, this outcome is prohibited,
637 even without a data-dependency barrier:
639 (Q == &B) && (B == 4)
641 Please note that this pattern should be rare. After all, the whole point
642 of dependency ordering is to -prevent- writes to the data structure, along
643 with the expensive cache misses associated with those writes. This pattern
644 can be used to record rare error conditions and the like, and the CPUs'
645 naturally occurring ordering prevents such records from being lost.
648 Note well that the ordering provided by a data dependency is local to
649 the CPU containing it. See the section on "Multicopy atomicity" for
653 The data dependency barrier is very important to the RCU system,
654 for example. See rcu_assign_pointer() and rcu_dereference() in
655 include/linux/rcupdate.h. This permits the current target of an RCU'd
656 pointer to be replaced with a new modified target, without the replacement
657 target appearing to be incompletely initialised.
659 See also the subsection on "Cache Coherency" for a more thorough example.
665 Control dependencies can be a bit tricky because current compilers do
666 not understand them. The purpose of this section is to help you prevent
667 the compiler's ignorance from breaking your code.
669 A load-load control dependency requires a full read memory barrier, not
670 simply a data dependency barrier to make it work correctly. Consider the
671 following bit of code:
675 <data dependency barrier> /* BUG: No data dependency!!! */
679 This will not have the desired effect because there is no actual data
680 dependency, but rather a control dependency that the CPU may short-circuit
681 by attempting to predict the outcome in advance, so that other CPUs see
682 the load from b as having happened before the load from a. In such a
683 case what's actually required is:
691 However, stores are not speculated. This means that ordering -is- provided
692 for load-store control dependencies, as in the following example:
699 Control dependencies pair normally with other types of barriers.
700 That said, please note that neither READ_ONCE() nor WRITE_ONCE()
701 are optional! Without the READ_ONCE(), the compiler might combine the
702 load from 'a' with other loads from 'a'. Without the WRITE_ONCE(),
703 the compiler might combine the store to 'b' with other stores to 'b'.
704 Either can result in highly counterintuitive effects on ordering.
706 Worse yet, if the compiler is able to prove (say) that the value of
707 variable 'a' is always non-zero, it would be well within its rights
708 to optimize the original example by eliminating the "if" statement
712 b = 1; /* BUG: Compiler and CPU can both reorder!!! */
714 So don't leave out the READ_ONCE().
716 It is tempting to try to enforce ordering on identical stores on both
717 branches of the "if" statement as follows:
730 Unfortunately, current compilers will transform this as follows at high
735 WRITE_ONCE(b, 1); /* BUG: No ordering vs. load from a!!! */
737 /* WRITE_ONCE(b, 1); -- moved up, BUG!!! */
740 /* WRITE_ONCE(b, 1); -- moved up, BUG!!! */
744 Now there is no conditional between the load from 'a' and the store to
745 'b', which means that the CPU is within its rights to reorder them:
746 The conditional is absolutely required, and must be present in the
747 assembly code even after all compiler optimizations have been applied.
748 Therefore, if you need ordering in this example, you need explicit
749 memory barriers, for example, smp_store_release():
753 smp_store_release(&b, 1);
756 smp_store_release(&b, 1);
760 In contrast, without explicit memory barriers, two-legged-if control
761 ordering is guaranteed only when the stores differ, for example:
772 The initial READ_ONCE() is still required to prevent the compiler from
773 proving the value of 'a'.
775 In addition, you need to be careful what you do with the local variable 'q',
776 otherwise the compiler might be able to guess the value and again remove
777 the needed conditional. For example:
788 If MAX is defined to be 1, then the compiler knows that (q % MAX) is
789 equal to zero, in which case the compiler is within its rights to
790 transform the above code into the following:
796 Given this transformation, the CPU is not required to respect the ordering
797 between the load from variable 'a' and the store to variable 'b'. It is
798 tempting to add a barrier(), but this does not help. The conditional
799 is gone, and the barrier won't bring it back. Therefore, if you are
800 relying on this ordering, you should make sure that MAX is greater than
801 one, perhaps as follows:
804 BUILD_BUG_ON(MAX <= 1); /* Order load from a with store to b. */
813 Please note once again that the stores to 'b' differ. If they were
814 identical, as noted earlier, the compiler could pull this store outside
815 of the 'if' statement.
817 You must also be careful not to rely too much on boolean short-circuit
818 evaluation. Consider this example:
824 Because the first condition cannot fault and the second condition is
825 always true, the compiler can transform this example as following,
826 defeating control dependency:
831 This example underscores the need to ensure that the compiler cannot
832 out-guess your code. More generally, although READ_ONCE() does force
833 the compiler to actually emit code for a given load, it does not force
834 the compiler to use the results.
836 In addition, control dependencies apply only to the then-clause and
837 else-clause of the if-statement in question. In particular, it does
838 not necessarily apply to code following the if-statement:
846 WRITE_ONCE(c, 1); /* BUG: No ordering against the read from 'a'. */
848 It is tempting to argue that there in fact is ordering because the
849 compiler cannot reorder volatile accesses and also cannot reorder
850 the writes to 'b' with the condition. Unfortunately for this line
851 of reasoning, the compiler might compile the two writes to 'b' as
852 conditional-move instructions, as in this fanciful pseudo-assembly
862 A weakly ordered CPU would have no dependency of any sort between the load
863 from 'a' and the store to 'c'. The control dependencies would extend
864 only to the pair of cmov instructions and the store depending on them.
865 In short, control dependencies apply only to the stores in the then-clause
866 and else-clause of the if-statement in question (including functions
867 invoked by those two clauses), not to code following that if-statement.
870 Note well that the ordering provided by a control dependency is local
871 to the CPU containing it. See the section on "Multicopy atomicity"
872 for more information.
877 (*) Control dependencies can order prior loads against later stores.
878 However, they do -not- guarantee any other sort of ordering:
879 Not prior loads against later loads, nor prior stores against
880 later anything. If you need these other forms of ordering,
881 use smp_rmb(), smp_wmb(), or, in the case of prior stores and
882 later loads, smp_mb().
884 (*) If both legs of the "if" statement begin with identical stores to
885 the same variable, then those stores must be ordered, either by
886 preceding both of them with smp_mb() or by using smp_store_release()
887 to carry out the stores. Please note that it is -not- sufficient
888 to use barrier() at beginning of each leg of the "if" statement
889 because, as shown by the example above, optimizing compilers can
890 destroy the control dependency while respecting the letter of the
893 (*) Control dependencies require at least one run-time conditional
894 between the prior load and the subsequent store, and this
895 conditional must involve the prior load. If the compiler is able
896 to optimize the conditional away, it will have also optimized
897 away the ordering. Careful use of READ_ONCE() and WRITE_ONCE()
898 can help to preserve the needed conditional.
900 (*) Control dependencies require that the compiler avoid reordering the
901 dependency into nonexistence. Careful use of READ_ONCE() or
902 atomic{,64}_read() can help to preserve your control dependency.
903 Please see the COMPILER BARRIER section for more information.
905 (*) Control dependencies apply only to the then-clause and else-clause
906 of the if-statement containing the control dependency, including
907 any functions that these two clauses call. Control dependencies
908 do -not- apply to code following the if-statement containing the
911 (*) Control dependencies pair normally with other types of barriers.
913 (*) Control dependencies do -not- provide multicopy atomicity. If you
914 need all the CPUs to see a given store at the same time, use smp_mb().
916 (*) Compilers do not understand control dependencies. It is therefore
917 your job to ensure that they do not break your code.
923 When dealing with CPU-CPU interactions, certain types of memory barrier should
924 always be paired. A lack of appropriate pairing is almost certainly an error.
926 General barriers pair with each other, though they also pair with most
927 other types of barriers, albeit without multicopy atomicity. An acquire
928 barrier pairs with a release barrier, but both may also pair with other
929 barriers, including of course general barriers. A write barrier pairs
930 with a data dependency barrier, a control dependency, an acquire barrier,
931 a release barrier, a read barrier, or a general barrier. Similarly a
932 read barrier, control dependency, or a data dependency barrier pairs
933 with a write barrier, an acquire barrier, a release barrier, or a
937 =============== ===============
940 WRITE_ONCE(b, 2); x = READ_ONCE(b);
947 =============== ===============================
950 WRITE_ONCE(b, &a); x = READ_ONCE(b);
951 <data dependency barrier>
957 =============== ===============================
960 WRITE_ONCE(x, 1); if (r2 = READ_ONCE(x)) {
961 <implicit control dependency>
965 assert(r1 == 0 || r2 == 0);
967 Basically, the read barrier always has to be there, even though it can be of
970 [!] Note that the stores before the write barrier would normally be expected to
971 match the loads after the read barrier or the data dependency barrier, and vice
975 =================== ===================
976 WRITE_ONCE(a, 1); }---- --->{ v = READ_ONCE(c);
977 WRITE_ONCE(b, 2); } \ / { w = READ_ONCE(d);
978 <write barrier> \ <read barrier>
979 WRITE_ONCE(c, 3); } / \ { x = READ_ONCE(a);
980 WRITE_ONCE(d, 4); }---- --->{ y = READ_ONCE(b);
983 EXAMPLES OF MEMORY BARRIER SEQUENCES
984 ------------------------------------
986 Firstly, write barriers act as partial orderings on store operations.
987 Consider the following sequence of events:
990 =======================
998 This sequence of events is committed to the memory coherence system in an order
999 that the rest of the system might perceive as the unordered set of { STORE A,
1000 STORE B, STORE C } all occurring before the unordered set of { STORE D, STORE E
1005 | |------>| C=3 | } /\
1006 | | : +------+ }----- \ -----> Events perceptible to
1007 | | : | A=1 | } \/ the rest of the system
1009 | CPU 1 | : | B=2 | }
1011 | | wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww } <--- At this point the write barrier
1012 | | +------+ } requires all stores prior to the
1013 | | : | E=5 | } barrier to be committed before
1014 | | : +------+ } further stores may take place
1019 | Sequence in which stores are committed to the
1020 | memory system by CPU 1
1024 Secondly, data dependency barriers act as partial orderings on data-dependent
1025 loads. Consider the following sequence of events:
1028 ======================= =======================
1029 { B = 7; X = 9; Y = 8; C = &Y }
1034 STORE D = 4 LOAD C (gets &B)
1037 Without intervention, CPU 2 may perceive the events on CPU 1 in some
1038 effectively random order, despite the write barrier issued by CPU 1:
1041 | | +------+ +-------+ | Sequence of update
1042 | |------>| B=2 |----- --->| Y->8 | | of perception on
1043 | | : +------+ \ +-------+ | CPU 2
1044 | CPU 1 | : | A=1 | \ --->| C->&Y | V
1045 | | +------+ | +-------+
1046 | | wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww | : :
1048 | | : | C=&B |--- | : : +-------+
1049 | | : +------+ \ | +-------+ | |
1050 | |------>| D=4 | ----------->| C->&B |------>| |
1051 | | +------+ | +-------+ | |
1052 +-------+ : : | : : | |
1056 Apparently incorrect ---> | | B->7 |------>| |
1057 perception of B (!) | +-------+ | |
1060 The load of X holds ---> \ | X->9 |------>| |
1061 up the maintenance \ +-------+ | |
1062 of coherence of B ----->| B->2 | +-------+
1067 In the above example, CPU 2 perceives that B is 7, despite the load of *C
1068 (which would be B) coming after the LOAD of C.
1070 If, however, a data dependency barrier were to be placed between the load of C
1071 and the load of *C (ie: B) on CPU 2:
1074 ======================= =======================
1075 { B = 7; X = 9; Y = 8; C = &Y }
1080 STORE D = 4 LOAD C (gets &B)
1081 <data dependency barrier>
1084 then the following will occur:
1087 | | +------+ +-------+
1088 | |------>| B=2 |----- --->| Y->8 |
1089 | | : +------+ \ +-------+
1090 | CPU 1 | : | A=1 | \ --->| C->&Y |
1091 | | +------+ | +-------+
1092 | | wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww | : :
1094 | | : | C=&B |--- | : : +-------+
1095 | | : +------+ \ | +-------+ | |
1096 | |------>| D=4 | ----------->| C->&B |------>| |
1097 | | +------+ | +-------+ | |
1098 +-------+ : : | : : | |
1102 | | X->9 |------>| |
1104 Makes sure all effects ---> \ ddddddddddddddddd | |
1105 prior to the store of C \ +-------+ | |
1106 are perceptible to ----->| B->2 |------>| |
1107 subsequent loads +-------+ | |
1111 And thirdly, a read barrier acts as a partial order on loads. Consider the
1112 following sequence of events:
1115 ======================= =======================
1123 Without intervention, CPU 2 may then choose to perceive the events on CPU 1 in
1124 some effectively random order, despite the write barrier issued by CPU 1:
1127 | | +------+ +-------+
1128 | |------>| A=1 |------ --->| A->0 |
1129 | | +------+ \ +-------+
1130 | CPU 1 | wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww \ --->| B->9 |
1131 | | +------+ | +-------+
1132 | |------>| B=2 |--- | : :
1133 | | +------+ \ | : : +-------+
1134 +-------+ : : \ | +-------+ | |
1135 ---------->| B->2 |------>| |
1136 | +-------+ | CPU 2 |
1137 | | A->0 |------>| |
1147 If, however, a read barrier were to be placed between the load of B and the
1151 ======================= =======================
1160 then the partial ordering imposed by CPU 1 will be perceived correctly by CPU
1164 | | +------+ +-------+
1165 | |------>| A=1 |------ --->| A->0 |
1166 | | +------+ \ +-------+
1167 | CPU 1 | wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww \ --->| B->9 |
1168 | | +------+ | +-------+
1169 | |------>| B=2 |--- | : :
1170 | | +------+ \ | : : +-------+
1171 +-------+ : : \ | +-------+ | |
1172 ---------->| B->2 |------>| |
1173 | +-------+ | CPU 2 |
1176 At this point the read ----> \ rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr | |
1177 barrier causes all effects \ +-------+ | |
1178 prior to the storage of B ---->| A->1 |------>| |
1179 to be perceptible to CPU 2 +-------+ | |
1183 To illustrate this more completely, consider what could happen if the code
1184 contained a load of A either side of the read barrier:
1187 ======================= =======================
1193 LOAD A [first load of A]
1195 LOAD A [second load of A]
1197 Even though the two loads of A both occur after the load of B, they may both
1198 come up with different values:
1201 | | +------+ +-------+
1202 | |------>| A=1 |------ --->| A->0 |
1203 | | +------+ \ +-------+
1204 | CPU 1 | wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww \ --->| B->9 |
1205 | | +------+ | +-------+
1206 | |------>| B=2 |--- | : :
1207 | | +------+ \ | : : +-------+
1208 +-------+ : : \ | +-------+ | |
1209 ---------->| B->2 |------>| |
1210 | +-------+ | CPU 2 |
1214 | | A->0 |------>| 1st |
1216 At this point the read ----> \ rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr | |
1217 barrier causes all effects \ +-------+ | |
1218 prior to the storage of B ---->| A->1 |------>| 2nd |
1219 to be perceptible to CPU 2 +-------+ | |
1223 But it may be that the update to A from CPU 1 becomes perceptible to CPU 2
1224 before the read barrier completes anyway:
1227 | | +------+ +-------+
1228 | |------>| A=1 |------ --->| A->0 |
1229 | | +------+ \ +-------+
1230 | CPU 1 | wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww \ --->| B->9 |
1231 | | +------+ | +-------+
1232 | |------>| B=2 |--- | : :
1233 | | +------+ \ | : : +-------+
1234 +-------+ : : \ | +-------+ | |
1235 ---------->| B->2 |------>| |
1236 | +-------+ | CPU 2 |
1240 ---->| A->1 |------>| 1st |
1242 rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr | |
1244 | A->1 |------>| 2nd |
1249 The guarantee is that the second load will always come up with A == 1 if the
1250 load of B came up with B == 2. No such guarantee exists for the first load of
1251 A; that may come up with either A == 0 or A == 1.
1254 READ MEMORY BARRIERS VS LOAD SPECULATION
1255 ----------------------------------------
1257 Many CPUs speculate with loads: that is they see that they will need to load an
1258 item from memory, and they find a time where they're not using the bus for any
1259 other loads, and so do the load in advance - even though they haven't actually
1260 got to that point in the instruction execution flow yet. This permits the
1261 actual load instruction to potentially complete immediately because the CPU
1262 already has the value to hand.
1264 It may turn out that the CPU didn't actually need the value - perhaps because a
1265 branch circumvented the load - in which case it can discard the value or just
1266 cache it for later use.
1271 ======================= =======================
1273 DIVIDE } Divide instructions generally
1274 DIVIDE } take a long time to perform
1277 Which might appear as this:
1281 --->| B->2 |------>| |
1285 The CPU being busy doing a ---> --->| A->0 |~~~~ | |
1286 division speculates on the +-------+ ~ | |
1290 Once the divisions are complete --> : : ~-->| |
1291 the CPU can then perform the : : | |
1292 LOAD with immediate effect : : +-------+
1295 Placing a read barrier or a data dependency barrier just before the second
1299 ======================= =======================
1306 will force any value speculatively obtained to be reconsidered to an extent
1307 dependent on the type of barrier used. If there was no change made to the
1308 speculated memory location, then the speculated value will just be used:
1312 --->| B->2 |------>| |
1316 The CPU being busy doing a ---> --->| A->0 |~~~~ | |
1317 division speculates on the +-------+ ~ | |
1322 rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr~ | |
1329 but if there was an update or an invalidation from another CPU pending, then
1330 the speculation will be cancelled and the value reloaded:
1334 --->| B->2 |------>| |
1338 The CPU being busy doing a ---> --->| A->0 |~~~~ | |
1339 division speculates on the +-------+ ~ | |
1344 rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr | |
1346 The speculation is discarded ---> --->| A->1 |------>| |
1347 and an updated value is +-------+ | |
1348 retrieved : : +-------+
1352 --------------------
1354 Multicopy atomicity is a deeply intuitive notion about ordering that is
1355 not always provided by real computer systems, namely that a given store
1356 becomes visible at the same time to all CPUs, or, alternatively, that all
1357 CPUs agree on the order in which all stores become visible. However,
1358 support of full multicopy atomicity would rule out valuable hardware
1359 optimizations, so a weaker form called ``other multicopy atomicity''
1360 instead guarantees only that a given store becomes visible at the same
1361 time to all -other- CPUs. The remainder of this document discusses this
1362 weaker form, but for brevity will call it simply ``multicopy atomicity''.
1364 The following example demonstrates multicopy atomicity:
1367 ======================= ======================= =======================
1369 STORE X=1 r1=LOAD X (reads 1) LOAD Y (reads 1)
1370 <general barrier> <read barrier>
1373 Suppose that CPU 2's load from X returns 1, which it then stores to Y,
1374 and CPU 3's load from Y returns 1. This indicates that CPU 1's store
1375 to X precedes CPU 2's load from X and that CPU 2's store to Y precedes
1376 CPU 3's load from Y. In addition, the memory barriers guarantee that
1377 CPU 2 executes its load before its store, and CPU 3 loads from Y before
1378 it loads from X. The question is then "Can CPU 3's load from X return 0?"
1380 Because CPU 3's load from X in some sense comes after CPU 2's load, it
1381 is natural to expect that CPU 3's load from X must therefore return 1.
1382 This expectation follows from multicopy atomicity: if a load executing
1383 on CPU B follows a load from the same variable executing on CPU A (and
1384 CPU A did not originally store the value which it read), then on
1385 multicopy-atomic systems, CPU B's load must return either the same value
1386 that CPU A's load did or some later value. However, the Linux kernel
1387 does not require systems to be multicopy atomic.
1389 The use of a general memory barrier in the example above compensates
1390 for any lack of multicopy atomicity. In the example, if CPU 2's load
1391 from X returns 1 and CPU 3's load from Y returns 1, then CPU 3's load
1392 from X must indeed also return 1.
1394 However, dependencies, read barriers, and write barriers are not always
1395 able to compensate for non-multicopy atomicity. For example, suppose
1396 that CPU 2's general barrier is removed from the above example, leaving
1397 only the data dependency shown below:
1400 ======================= ======================= =======================
1402 STORE X=1 r1=LOAD X (reads 1) LOAD Y (reads 1)
1403 <data dependency> <read barrier>
1404 STORE Y=r1 LOAD X (reads 0)
1406 This substitution allows non-multicopy atomicity to run rampant: in
1407 this example, it is perfectly legal for CPU 2's load from X to return 1,
1408 CPU 3's load from Y to return 1, and its load from X to return 0.
1410 The key point is that although CPU 2's data dependency orders its load
1411 and store, it does not guarantee to order CPU 1's store. Thus, if this
1412 example runs on a non-multicopy-atomic system where CPUs 1 and 2 share a
1413 store buffer or a level of cache, CPU 2 might have early access to CPU 1's
1414 writes. General barriers are therefore required to ensure that all CPUs
1415 agree on the combined order of multiple accesses.
1417 General barriers can compensate not only for non-multicopy atomicity,
1418 but can also generate additional ordering that can ensure that -all-
1419 CPUs will perceive the same order of -all- operations. In contrast, a
1420 chain of release-acquire pairs do not provide this additional ordering,
1421 which means that only those CPUs on the chain are guaranteed to agree
1422 on the combined order of the accesses. For example, switching to C code
1423 in deference to the ghost of Herman Hollerith:
1429 r0 = smp_load_acquire(&x);
1431 smp_store_release(&y, 1);
1436 r1 = smp_load_acquire(&y);
1439 smp_store_release(&z, 1);
1444 r2 = smp_load_acquire(&z);
1445 smp_store_release(&x, 1);
1455 Because cpu0(), cpu1(), and cpu2() participate in a chain of
1456 smp_store_release()/smp_load_acquire() pairs, the following outcome
1459 r0 == 1 && r1 == 1 && r2 == 1
1461 Furthermore, because of the release-acquire relationship between cpu0()
1462 and cpu1(), cpu1() must see cpu0()'s writes, so that the following
1463 outcome is prohibited:
1467 However, the ordering provided by a release-acquire chain is local
1468 to the CPUs participating in that chain and does not apply to cpu3(),
1469 at least aside from stores. Therefore, the following outcome is possible:
1471 r0 == 0 && r1 == 1 && r2 == 1 && r3 == 0 && r4 == 0
1473 As an aside, the following outcome is also possible:
1475 r0 == 0 && r1 == 1 && r2 == 1 && r3 == 0 && r4 == 0 && r5 == 1
1477 Although cpu0(), cpu1(), and cpu2() will see their respective reads and
1478 writes in order, CPUs not involved in the release-acquire chain might
1479 well disagree on the order. This disagreement stems from the fact that
1480 the weak memory-barrier instructions used to implement smp_load_acquire()
1481 and smp_store_release() are not required to order prior stores against
1482 subsequent loads in all cases. This means that cpu3() can see cpu0()'s
1483 store to u as happening -after- cpu1()'s load from v, even though
1484 both cpu0() and cpu1() agree that these two operations occurred in the
1487 However, please keep in mind that smp_load_acquire() is not magic.
1488 In particular, it simply reads from its argument with ordering. It does
1489 -not- ensure that any particular value will be read. Therefore, the
1490 following outcome is possible:
1492 r0 == 0 && r1 == 0 && r2 == 0 && r5 == 0
1494 Note that this outcome can happen even on a mythical sequentially
1495 consistent system where nothing is ever reordered.
1497 To reiterate, if your code requires full ordering of all operations,
1498 use general barriers throughout.
1501 ========================
1502 EXPLICIT KERNEL BARRIERS
1503 ========================
1505 The Linux kernel has a variety of different barriers that act at different
1508 (*) Compiler barrier.
1510 (*) CPU memory barriers.
1516 The Linux kernel has an explicit compiler barrier function that prevents the
1517 compiler from moving the memory accesses either side of it to the other side:
1521 This is a general barrier -- there are no read-read or write-write
1522 variants of barrier(). However, READ_ONCE() and WRITE_ONCE() can be
1523 thought of as weak forms of barrier() that affect only the specific
1524 accesses flagged by the READ_ONCE() or WRITE_ONCE().
1526 The barrier() function has the following effects:
1528 (*) Prevents the compiler from reordering accesses following the
1529 barrier() to precede any accesses preceding the barrier().
1530 One example use for this property is to ease communication between
1531 interrupt-handler code and the code that was interrupted.
1533 (*) Within a loop, forces the compiler to load the variables used
1534 in that loop's conditional on each pass through that loop.
1536 The READ_ONCE() and WRITE_ONCE() functions can prevent any number of
1537 optimizations that, while perfectly safe in single-threaded code, can
1538 be fatal in concurrent code. Here are some examples of these sorts
1541 (*) The compiler is within its rights to reorder loads and stores
1542 to the same variable, and in some cases, the CPU is within its
1543 rights to reorder loads to the same variable. This means that
1549 Might result in an older value of x stored in a[1] than in a[0].
1550 Prevent both the compiler and the CPU from doing this as follows:
1552 a[0] = READ_ONCE(x);
1553 a[1] = READ_ONCE(x);
1555 In short, READ_ONCE() and WRITE_ONCE() provide cache coherence for
1556 accesses from multiple CPUs to a single variable.
1558 (*) The compiler is within its rights to merge successive loads from
1559 the same variable. Such merging can cause the compiler to "optimize"
1563 do_something_with(tmp);
1565 into the following code, which, although in some sense legitimate
1566 for single-threaded code, is almost certainly not what the developer
1571 do_something_with(tmp);
1573 Use READ_ONCE() to prevent the compiler from doing this to you:
1575 while (tmp = READ_ONCE(a))
1576 do_something_with(tmp);
1578 (*) The compiler is within its rights to reload a variable, for example,
1579 in cases where high register pressure prevents the compiler from
1580 keeping all data of interest in registers. The compiler might
1581 therefore optimize the variable 'tmp' out of our previous example:
1584 do_something_with(tmp);
1586 This could result in the following code, which is perfectly safe in
1587 single-threaded code, but can be fatal in concurrent code:
1590 do_something_with(a);
1592 For example, the optimized version of this code could result in
1593 passing a zero to do_something_with() in the case where the variable
1594 a was modified by some other CPU between the "while" statement and
1595 the call to do_something_with().
1597 Again, use READ_ONCE() to prevent the compiler from doing this:
1599 while (tmp = READ_ONCE(a))
1600 do_something_with(tmp);
1602 Note that if the compiler runs short of registers, it might save
1603 tmp onto the stack. The overhead of this saving and later restoring
1604 is why compilers reload variables. Doing so is perfectly safe for
1605 single-threaded code, so you need to tell the compiler about cases
1606 where it is not safe.
1608 (*) The compiler is within its rights to omit a load entirely if it knows
1609 what the value will be. For example, if the compiler can prove that
1610 the value of variable 'a' is always zero, it can optimize this code:
1613 do_something_with(tmp);
1619 This transformation is a win for single-threaded code because it
1620 gets rid of a load and a branch. The problem is that the compiler
1621 will carry out its proof assuming that the current CPU is the only
1622 one updating variable 'a'. If variable 'a' is shared, then the
1623 compiler's proof will be erroneous. Use READ_ONCE() to tell the
1624 compiler that it doesn't know as much as it thinks it does:
1626 while (tmp = READ_ONCE(a))
1627 do_something_with(tmp);
1629 But please note that the compiler is also closely watching what you
1630 do with the value after the READ_ONCE(). For example, suppose you
1631 do the following and MAX is a preprocessor macro with the value 1:
1633 while ((tmp = READ_ONCE(a)) % MAX)
1634 do_something_with(tmp);
1636 Then the compiler knows that the result of the "%" operator applied
1637 to MAX will always be zero, again allowing the compiler to optimize
1638 the code into near-nonexistence. (It will still load from the
1641 (*) Similarly, the compiler is within its rights to omit a store entirely
1642 if it knows that the variable already has the value being stored.
1643 Again, the compiler assumes that the current CPU is the only one
1644 storing into the variable, which can cause the compiler to do the
1645 wrong thing for shared variables. For example, suppose you have
1649 ... Code that does not store to variable a ...
1652 The compiler sees that the value of variable 'a' is already zero, so
1653 it might well omit the second store. This would come as a fatal
1654 surprise if some other CPU might have stored to variable 'a' in the
1657 Use WRITE_ONCE() to prevent the compiler from making this sort of
1661 ... Code that does not store to variable a ...
1664 (*) The compiler is within its rights to reorder memory accesses unless
1665 you tell it not to. For example, consider the following interaction
1666 between process-level code and an interrupt handler:
1668 void process_level(void)
1670 msg = get_message();
1674 void interrupt_handler(void)
1677 process_message(msg);
1680 There is nothing to prevent the compiler from transforming
1681 process_level() to the following, in fact, this might well be a
1682 win for single-threaded code:
1684 void process_level(void)
1687 msg = get_message();
1690 If the interrupt occurs between these two statement, then
1691 interrupt_handler() might be passed a garbled msg. Use WRITE_ONCE()
1692 to prevent this as follows:
1694 void process_level(void)
1696 WRITE_ONCE(msg, get_message());
1697 WRITE_ONCE(flag, true);
1700 void interrupt_handler(void)
1702 if (READ_ONCE(flag))
1703 process_message(READ_ONCE(msg));
1706 Note that the READ_ONCE() and WRITE_ONCE() wrappers in
1707 interrupt_handler() are needed if this interrupt handler can itself
1708 be interrupted by something that also accesses 'flag' and 'msg',
1709 for example, a nested interrupt or an NMI. Otherwise, READ_ONCE()
1710 and WRITE_ONCE() are not needed in interrupt_handler() other than
1711 for documentation purposes. (Note also that nested interrupts
1712 do not typically occur in modern Linux kernels, in fact, if an
1713 interrupt handler returns with interrupts enabled, you will get a
1716 You should assume that the compiler can move READ_ONCE() and
1717 WRITE_ONCE() past code not containing READ_ONCE(), WRITE_ONCE(),
1718 barrier(), or similar primitives.
1720 This effect could also be achieved using barrier(), but READ_ONCE()
1721 and WRITE_ONCE() are more selective: With READ_ONCE() and
1722 WRITE_ONCE(), the compiler need only forget the contents of the
1723 indicated memory locations, while with barrier() the compiler must
1724 discard the value of all memory locations that it has currently
1725 cached in any machine registers. Of course, the compiler must also
1726 respect the order in which the READ_ONCE()s and WRITE_ONCE()s occur,
1727 though the CPU of course need not do so.
1729 (*) The compiler is within its rights to invent stores to a variable,
1730 as in the following example:
1737 The compiler might save a branch by optimizing this as follows:
1743 In single-threaded code, this is not only safe, but also saves
1744 a branch. Unfortunately, in concurrent code, this optimization
1745 could cause some other CPU to see a spurious value of 42 -- even
1746 if variable 'a' was never zero -- when loading variable 'b'.
1747 Use WRITE_ONCE() to prevent this as follows:
1754 The compiler can also invent loads. These are usually less
1755 damaging, but they can result in cache-line bouncing and thus in
1756 poor performance and scalability. Use READ_ONCE() to prevent
1759 (*) For aligned memory locations whose size allows them to be accessed
1760 with a single memory-reference instruction, prevents "load tearing"
1761 and "store tearing," in which a single large access is replaced by
1762 multiple smaller accesses. For example, given an architecture having
1763 16-bit store instructions with 7-bit immediate fields, the compiler
1764 might be tempted to use two 16-bit store-immediate instructions to
1765 implement the following 32-bit store:
1769 Please note that GCC really does use this sort of optimization,
1770 which is not surprising given that it would likely take more
1771 than two instructions to build the constant and then store it.
1772 This optimization can therefore be a win in single-threaded code.
1773 In fact, a recent bug (since fixed) caused GCC to incorrectly use
1774 this optimization in a volatile store. In the absence of such bugs,
1775 use of WRITE_ONCE() prevents store tearing in the following example:
1777 WRITE_ONCE(p, 0x00010002);
1779 Use of packed structures can also result in load and store tearing,
1782 struct __attribute__((__packed__)) foo {
1787 struct foo foo1, foo2;
1794 Because there are no READ_ONCE() or WRITE_ONCE() wrappers and no
1795 volatile markings, the compiler would be well within its rights to
1796 implement these three assignment statements as a pair of 32-bit
1797 loads followed by a pair of 32-bit stores. This would result in
1798 load tearing on 'foo1.b' and store tearing on 'foo2.b'. READ_ONCE()
1799 and WRITE_ONCE() again prevent tearing in this example:
1802 WRITE_ONCE(foo2.b, READ_ONCE(foo1.b));
1805 All that aside, it is never necessary to use READ_ONCE() and
1806 WRITE_ONCE() on a variable that has been marked volatile. For example,
1807 because 'jiffies' is marked volatile, it is never necessary to
1808 say READ_ONCE(jiffies). The reason for this is that READ_ONCE() and
1809 WRITE_ONCE() are implemented as volatile casts, which has no effect when
1810 its argument is already marked volatile.
1812 Please note that these compiler barriers have no direct effect on the CPU,
1813 which may then reorder things however it wishes.
1819 The Linux kernel has eight basic CPU memory barriers:
1821 TYPE MANDATORY SMP CONDITIONAL
1822 =============== ======================= ===========================
1823 GENERAL mb() smp_mb()
1824 WRITE wmb() smp_wmb()
1825 READ rmb() smp_rmb()
1826 DATA DEPENDENCY READ_ONCE()
1829 All memory barriers except the data dependency barriers imply a compiler
1830 barrier. Data dependencies do not impose any additional compiler ordering.
1832 Aside: In the case of data dependencies, the compiler would be expected
1833 to issue the loads in the correct order (eg. `a[b]` would have to load
1834 the value of b before loading a[b]), however there is no guarantee in
1835 the C specification that the compiler may not speculate the value of b
1836 (eg. is equal to 1) and load a[b] before b (eg. tmp = a[1]; if (b != 1)
1837 tmp = a[b]; ). There is also the problem of a compiler reloading b after
1838 having loaded a[b], thus having a newer copy of b than a[b]. A consensus
1839 has not yet been reached about these problems, however the READ_ONCE()
1840 macro is a good place to start looking.
1842 SMP memory barriers are reduced to compiler barriers on uniprocessor compiled
1843 systems because it is assumed that a CPU will appear to be self-consistent,
1844 and will order overlapping accesses correctly with respect to itself.
1845 However, see the subsection on "Virtual Machine Guests" below.
1847 [!] Note that SMP memory barriers _must_ be used to control the ordering of
1848 references to shared memory on SMP systems, though the use of locking instead
1851 Mandatory barriers should not be used to control SMP effects, since mandatory
1852 barriers impose unnecessary overhead on both SMP and UP systems. They may,
1853 however, be used to control MMIO effects on accesses through relaxed memory I/O
1854 windows. These barriers are required even on non-SMP systems as they affect
1855 the order in which memory operations appear to a device by prohibiting both the
1856 compiler and the CPU from reordering them.
1859 There are some more advanced barrier functions:
1861 (*) smp_store_mb(var, value)
1863 This assigns the value to the variable and then inserts a full memory
1864 barrier after it. It isn't guaranteed to insert anything more than a
1865 compiler barrier in a UP compilation.
1868 (*) smp_mb__before_atomic();
1869 (*) smp_mb__after_atomic();
1871 These are for use with atomic RMW functions that do not imply memory
1872 barriers, but where the code needs a memory barrier. Examples for atomic
1873 RMW functions that do not imply are memory barrier are e.g. add,
1874 subtract, (failed) conditional operations, _relaxed functions,
1875 but not atomic_read or atomic_set. A common example where a memory
1876 barrier may be required is when atomic ops are used for reference
1879 These are also used for atomic RMW bitop functions that do not imply a
1880 memory barrier (such as set_bit and clear_bit).
1882 As an example, consider a piece of code that marks an object as being dead
1883 and then decrements the object's reference count:
1886 smp_mb__before_atomic();
1887 atomic_dec(&obj->ref_count);
1889 This makes sure that the death mark on the object is perceived to be set
1890 *before* the reference counter is decremented.
1892 See Documentation/atomic_{t,bitops}.txt for more information.
1898 These are for use with consistent memory to guarantee the ordering
1899 of writes or reads of shared memory accessible to both the CPU and a
1902 For example, consider a device driver that shares memory with a device
1903 and uses a descriptor status value to indicate if the descriptor belongs
1904 to the device or the CPU, and a doorbell to notify it when new
1905 descriptors are available:
1907 if (desc->status != DEVICE_OWN) {
1908 /* do not read data until we own descriptor */
1911 /* read/modify data */
1912 read_data = desc->data;
1913 desc->data = write_data;
1915 /* flush modifications before status update */
1918 /* assign ownership */
1919 desc->status = DEVICE_OWN;
1921 /* notify device of new descriptors */
1922 writel(DESC_NOTIFY, doorbell);
1925 The dma_rmb() allows us guarantee the device has released ownership
1926 before we read the data from the descriptor, and the dma_wmb() allows
1927 us to guarantee the data is written to the descriptor before the device
1928 can see it now has ownership. Note that, when using writel(), a prior
1929 wmb() is not needed to guarantee that the cache coherent memory writes
1930 have completed before writing to the MMIO region. The cheaper
1931 writel_relaxed() does not provide this guarantee and must not be used
1934 See the subsection "Kernel I/O barrier effects" for more information on
1935 relaxed I/O accessors and the Documentation/DMA-API.txt file for more
1936 information on consistent memory.
1939 ===============================
1940 IMPLICIT KERNEL MEMORY BARRIERS
1941 ===============================
1943 Some of the other functions in the linux kernel imply memory barriers, amongst
1944 which are locking and scheduling functions.
1946 This specification is a _minimum_ guarantee; any particular architecture may
1947 provide more substantial guarantees, but these may not be relied upon outside
1948 of arch specific code.
1951 LOCK ACQUISITION FUNCTIONS
1952 --------------------------
1954 The Linux kernel has a number of locking constructs:
1962 In all cases there are variants on "ACQUIRE" operations and "RELEASE" operations
1963 for each construct. These operations all imply certain barriers:
1965 (1) ACQUIRE operation implication:
1967 Memory operations issued after the ACQUIRE will be completed after the
1968 ACQUIRE operation has completed.
1970 Memory operations issued before the ACQUIRE may be completed after
1971 the ACQUIRE operation has completed.
1973 (2) RELEASE operation implication:
1975 Memory operations issued before the RELEASE will be completed before the
1976 RELEASE operation has completed.
1978 Memory operations issued after the RELEASE may be completed before the
1979 RELEASE operation has completed.
1981 (3) ACQUIRE vs ACQUIRE implication:
1983 All ACQUIRE operations issued before another ACQUIRE operation will be
1984 completed before that ACQUIRE operation.
1986 (4) ACQUIRE vs RELEASE implication:
1988 All ACQUIRE operations issued before a RELEASE operation will be
1989 completed before the RELEASE operation.
1991 (5) Failed conditional ACQUIRE implication:
1993 Certain locking variants of the ACQUIRE operation may fail, either due to
1994 being unable to get the lock immediately, or due to receiving an unblocked
1995 signal while asleep waiting for the lock to become available. Failed
1996 locks do not imply any sort of barrier.
1998 [!] Note: one of the consequences of lock ACQUIREs and RELEASEs being only
1999 one-way barriers is that the effects of instructions outside of a critical
2000 section may seep into the inside of the critical section.
2002 An ACQUIRE followed by a RELEASE may not be assumed to be full memory barrier
2003 because it is possible for an access preceding the ACQUIRE to happen after the
2004 ACQUIRE, and an access following the RELEASE to happen before the RELEASE, and
2005 the two accesses can themselves then cross:
2014 ACQUIRE M, STORE *B, STORE *A, RELEASE M
2016 When the ACQUIRE and RELEASE are a lock acquisition and release,
2017 respectively, this same reordering can occur if the lock's ACQUIRE and
2018 RELEASE are to the same lock variable, but only from the perspective of
2019 another CPU not holding that lock. In short, a ACQUIRE followed by an
2020 RELEASE may -not- be assumed to be a full memory barrier.
2022 Similarly, the reverse case of a RELEASE followed by an ACQUIRE does
2023 not imply a full memory barrier. Therefore, the CPU's execution of the
2024 critical sections corresponding to the RELEASE and the ACQUIRE can cross,
2034 ACQUIRE N, STORE *B, STORE *A, RELEASE M
2036 It might appear that this reordering could introduce a deadlock.
2037 However, this cannot happen because if such a deadlock threatened,
2038 the RELEASE would simply complete, thereby avoiding the deadlock.
2042 One key point is that we are only talking about the CPU doing
2043 the reordering, not the compiler. If the compiler (or, for
2044 that matter, the developer) switched the operations, deadlock
2047 But suppose the CPU reordered the operations. In this case,
2048 the unlock precedes the lock in the assembly code. The CPU
2049 simply elected to try executing the later lock operation first.
2050 If there is a deadlock, this lock operation will simply spin (or
2051 try to sleep, but more on that later). The CPU will eventually
2052 execute the unlock operation (which preceded the lock operation
2053 in the assembly code), which will unravel the potential deadlock,
2054 allowing the lock operation to succeed.
2056 But what if the lock is a sleeplock? In that case, the code will
2057 try to enter the scheduler, where it will eventually encounter
2058 a memory barrier, which will force the earlier unlock operation
2059 to complete, again unraveling the deadlock. There might be
2060 a sleep-unlock race, but the locking primitive needs to resolve
2061 such races properly in any case.
2063 Locks and semaphores may not provide any guarantee of ordering on UP compiled
2064 systems, and so cannot be counted on in such a situation to actually achieve
2065 anything at all - especially with respect to I/O accesses - unless combined
2066 with interrupt disabling operations.
2068 See also the section on "Inter-CPU acquiring barrier effects".
2071 As an example, consider the following:
2082 The following sequence of events is acceptable:
2084 ACQUIRE, {*F,*A}, *E, {*C,*D}, *B, RELEASE
2086 [+] Note that {*F,*A} indicates a combined access.
2088 But none of the following are:
2090 {*F,*A}, *B, ACQUIRE, *C, *D, RELEASE, *E
2091 *A, *B, *C, ACQUIRE, *D, RELEASE, *E, *F
2092 *A, *B, ACQUIRE, *C, RELEASE, *D, *E, *F
2093 *B, ACQUIRE, *C, *D, RELEASE, {*F,*A}, *E
2097 INTERRUPT DISABLING FUNCTIONS
2098 -----------------------------
2100 Functions that disable interrupts (ACQUIRE equivalent) and enable interrupts
2101 (RELEASE equivalent) will act as compiler barriers only. So if memory or I/O
2102 barriers are required in such a situation, they must be provided from some
2106 SLEEP AND WAKE-UP FUNCTIONS
2107 ---------------------------
2109 Sleeping and waking on an event flagged in global data can be viewed as an
2110 interaction between two pieces of data: the task state of the task waiting for
2111 the event and the global data used to indicate the event. To make sure that
2112 these appear to happen in the right order, the primitives to begin the process
2113 of going to sleep, and the primitives to initiate a wake up imply certain
2116 Firstly, the sleeper normally follows something like this sequence of events:
2119 set_current_state(TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE);
2120 if (event_indicated)
2125 A general memory barrier is interpolated automatically by set_current_state()
2126 after it has altered the task state:
2129 ===============================
2130 set_current_state();
2132 STORE current->state
2134 LOAD event_indicated
2136 set_current_state() may be wrapped by:
2139 prepare_to_wait_exclusive();
2141 which therefore also imply a general memory barrier after setting the state.
2142 The whole sequence above is available in various canned forms, all of which
2143 interpolate the memory barrier in the right place:
2146 wait_event_interruptible();
2147 wait_event_interruptible_exclusive();
2148 wait_event_interruptible_timeout();
2149 wait_event_killable();
2150 wait_event_timeout();
2155 Secondly, code that performs a wake up normally follows something like this:
2157 event_indicated = 1;
2158 wake_up(&event_wait_queue);
2162 event_indicated = 1;
2163 wake_up_process(event_daemon);
2165 A general memory barrier is executed by wake_up() if it wakes something up.
2166 If it doesn't wake anything up then a memory barrier may or may not be
2167 executed; you must not rely on it. The barrier occurs before the task state
2168 is accessed, in particular, it sits between the STORE to indicate the event
2169 and the STORE to set TASK_RUNNING:
2171 CPU 1 (Sleeper) CPU 2 (Waker)
2172 =============================== ===============================
2173 set_current_state(); STORE event_indicated
2174 smp_store_mb(); wake_up();
2175 STORE current->state ...
2176 <general barrier> <general barrier>
2177 LOAD event_indicated if ((LOAD task->state) & TASK_NORMAL)
2180 where "task" is the thread being woken up and it equals CPU 1's "current".
2182 To repeat, a general memory barrier is guaranteed to be executed by wake_up()
2183 if something is actually awakened, but otherwise there is no such guarantee.
2184 To see this, consider the following sequence of events, where X and Y are both
2188 =============================== ===============================
2190 smp_mb(); wake_up();
2193 If a wakeup does occur, one (at least) of the two loads must see 1. If, on
2194 the other hand, a wakeup does not occur, both loads might see 0.
2196 wake_up_process() always executes a general memory barrier. The barrier again
2197 occurs before the task state is accessed. In particular, if the wake_up() in
2198 the previous snippet were replaced by a call to wake_up_process() then one of
2199 the two loads would be guaranteed to see 1.
2201 The available waker functions include:
2207 wake_up_interruptible();
2208 wake_up_interruptible_all();
2209 wake_up_interruptible_nr();
2210 wake_up_interruptible_poll();
2211 wake_up_interruptible_sync();
2212 wake_up_interruptible_sync_poll();
2214 wake_up_locked_poll();
2219 In terms of memory ordering, these functions all provide the same guarantees of
2220 a wake_up() (or stronger).
2222 [!] Note that the memory barriers implied by the sleeper and the waker do _not_
2223 order multiple stores before the wake-up with respect to loads of those stored
2224 values after the sleeper has called set_current_state(). For instance, if the
2227 set_current_state(TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE);
2228 if (event_indicated)
2230 __set_current_state(TASK_RUNNING);
2231 do_something(my_data);
2236 event_indicated = 1;
2237 wake_up(&event_wait_queue);
2239 there's no guarantee that the change to event_indicated will be perceived by
2240 the sleeper as coming after the change to my_data. In such a circumstance, the
2241 code on both sides must interpolate its own memory barriers between the
2242 separate data accesses. Thus the above sleeper ought to do:
2244 set_current_state(TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE);
2245 if (event_indicated) {
2247 do_something(my_data);
2250 and the waker should do:
2254 event_indicated = 1;
2255 wake_up(&event_wait_queue);
2258 MISCELLANEOUS FUNCTIONS
2259 -----------------------
2261 Other functions that imply barriers:
2263 (*) schedule() and similar imply full memory barriers.
2266 ===================================
2267 INTER-CPU ACQUIRING BARRIER EFFECTS
2268 ===================================
2270 On SMP systems locking primitives give a more substantial form of barrier: one
2271 that does affect memory access ordering on other CPUs, within the context of
2272 conflict on any particular lock.
2275 ACQUIRES VS MEMORY ACCESSES
2276 ---------------------------
2278 Consider the following: the system has a pair of spinlocks (M) and (Q), and
2279 three CPUs; then should the following sequence of events occur:
2282 =============================== ===============================
2283 WRITE_ONCE(*A, a); WRITE_ONCE(*E, e);
2285 WRITE_ONCE(*B, b); WRITE_ONCE(*F, f);
2286 WRITE_ONCE(*C, c); WRITE_ONCE(*G, g);
2288 WRITE_ONCE(*D, d); WRITE_ONCE(*H, h);
2290 Then there is no guarantee as to what order CPU 3 will see the accesses to *A
2291 through *H occur in, other than the constraints imposed by the separate locks
2292 on the separate CPUs. It might, for example, see:
2294 *E, ACQUIRE M, ACQUIRE Q, *G, *C, *F, *A, *B, RELEASE Q, *D, *H, RELEASE M
2296 But it won't see any of:
2298 *B, *C or *D preceding ACQUIRE M
2299 *A, *B or *C following RELEASE M
2300 *F, *G or *H preceding ACQUIRE Q
2301 *E, *F or *G following RELEASE Q
2304 =================================
2305 WHERE ARE MEMORY BARRIERS NEEDED?
2306 =================================
2308 Under normal operation, memory operation reordering is generally not going to
2309 be a problem as a single-threaded linear piece of code will still appear to
2310 work correctly, even if it's in an SMP kernel. There are, however, four
2311 circumstances in which reordering definitely _could_ be a problem:
2313 (*) Interprocessor interaction.
2315 (*) Atomic operations.
2317 (*) Accessing devices.
2322 INTERPROCESSOR INTERACTION
2323 --------------------------
2325 When there's a system with more than one processor, more than one CPU in the
2326 system may be working on the same data set at the same time. This can cause
2327 synchronisation problems, and the usual way of dealing with them is to use
2328 locks. Locks, however, are quite expensive, and so it may be preferable to
2329 operate without the use of a lock if at all possible. In such a case
2330 operations that affect both CPUs may have to be carefully ordered to prevent
2333 Consider, for example, the R/W semaphore slow path. Here a waiting process is
2334 queued on the semaphore, by virtue of it having a piece of its stack linked to
2335 the semaphore's list of waiting processes:
2337 struct rw_semaphore {
2340 struct list_head waiters;
2343 struct rwsem_waiter {
2344 struct list_head list;
2345 struct task_struct *task;
2348 To wake up a particular waiter, the up_read() or up_write() functions have to:
2350 (1) read the next pointer from this waiter's record to know as to where the
2351 next waiter record is;
2353 (2) read the pointer to the waiter's task structure;
2355 (3) clear the task pointer to tell the waiter it has been given the semaphore;
2357 (4) call wake_up_process() on the task; and
2359 (5) release the reference held on the waiter's task struct.
2361 In other words, it has to perform this sequence of events:
2363 LOAD waiter->list.next;
2369 and if any of these steps occur out of order, then the whole thing may
2372 Once it has queued itself and dropped the semaphore lock, the waiter does not
2373 get the lock again; it instead just waits for its task pointer to be cleared
2374 before proceeding. Since the record is on the waiter's stack, this means that
2375 if the task pointer is cleared _before_ the next pointer in the list is read,
2376 another CPU might start processing the waiter and might clobber the waiter's
2377 stack before the up*() function has a chance to read the next pointer.
2379 Consider then what might happen to the above sequence of events:
2382 =============================== ===============================
2389 Woken up by other event
2394 foo() clobbers *waiter
2396 LOAD waiter->list.next;
2399 This could be dealt with using the semaphore lock, but then the down_xxx()
2400 function has to needlessly get the spinlock again after being woken up.
2402 The way to deal with this is to insert a general SMP memory barrier:
2404 LOAD waiter->list.next;
2411 In this case, the barrier makes a guarantee that all memory accesses before the
2412 barrier will appear to happen before all the memory accesses after the barrier
2413 with respect to the other CPUs on the system. It does _not_ guarantee that all
2414 the memory accesses before the barrier will be complete by the time the barrier
2415 instruction itself is complete.
2417 On a UP system - where this wouldn't be a problem - the smp_mb() is just a
2418 compiler barrier, thus making sure the compiler emits the instructions in the
2419 right order without actually intervening in the CPU. Since there's only one
2420 CPU, that CPU's dependency ordering logic will take care of everything else.
2426 While they are technically interprocessor interaction considerations, atomic
2427 operations are noted specially as some of them imply full memory barriers and
2428 some don't, but they're very heavily relied on as a group throughout the
2431 See Documentation/atomic_t.txt for more information.
2437 Many devices can be memory mapped, and so appear to the CPU as if they're just
2438 a set of memory locations. To control such a device, the driver usually has to
2439 make the right memory accesses in exactly the right order.
2441 However, having a clever CPU or a clever compiler creates a potential problem
2442 in that the carefully sequenced accesses in the driver code won't reach the
2443 device in the requisite order if the CPU or the compiler thinks it is more
2444 efficient to reorder, combine or merge accesses - something that would cause
2445 the device to malfunction.
2447 Inside of the Linux kernel, I/O should be done through the appropriate accessor
2448 routines - such as inb() or writel() - which know how to make such accesses
2449 appropriately sequential. While this, for the most part, renders the explicit
2450 use of memory barriers unnecessary, if the accessor functions are used to refer
2451 to an I/O memory window with relaxed memory access properties, then _mandatory_
2452 memory barriers are required to enforce ordering.
2454 See Documentation/driver-api/device-io.rst for more information.
2460 A driver may be interrupted by its own interrupt service routine, and thus the
2461 two parts of the driver may interfere with each other's attempts to control or
2464 This may be alleviated - at least in part - by disabling local interrupts (a
2465 form of locking), such that the critical operations are all contained within
2466 the interrupt-disabled section in the driver. While the driver's interrupt
2467 routine is executing, the driver's core may not run on the same CPU, and its
2468 interrupt is not permitted to happen again until the current interrupt has been
2469 handled, thus the interrupt handler does not need to lock against that.
2471 However, consider a driver that was talking to an ethernet card that sports an
2472 address register and a data register. If that driver's core talks to the card
2473 under interrupt-disablement and then the driver's interrupt handler is invoked:
2484 The store to the data register might happen after the second store to the
2485 address register if ordering rules are sufficiently relaxed:
2487 STORE *ADDR = 3, STORE *ADDR = 4, STORE *DATA = y, q = LOAD *DATA
2490 If ordering rules are relaxed, it must be assumed that accesses done inside an
2491 interrupt disabled section may leak outside of it and may interleave with
2492 accesses performed in an interrupt - and vice versa - unless implicit or
2493 explicit barriers are used.
2495 Normally this won't be a problem because the I/O accesses done inside such
2496 sections will include synchronous load operations on strictly ordered I/O
2497 registers that form implicit I/O barriers.
2500 A similar situation may occur between an interrupt routine and two routines
2501 running on separate CPUs that communicate with each other. If such a case is
2502 likely, then interrupt-disabling locks should be used to guarantee ordering.
2505 ==========================
2506 KERNEL I/O BARRIER EFFECTS
2507 ==========================
2509 Interfacing with peripherals via I/O accesses is deeply architecture and device
2510 specific. Therefore, drivers which are inherently non-portable may rely on
2511 specific behaviours of their target systems in order to achieve synchronization
2512 in the most lightweight manner possible. For drivers intending to be portable
2513 between multiple architectures and bus implementations, the kernel offers a
2514 series of accessor functions that provide various degrees of ordering
2517 (*) readX(), writeX():
2519 The readX() and writeX() MMIO accessors take a pointer to the
2520 peripheral being accessed as an __iomem * parameter. For pointers
2521 mapped with the default I/O attributes (e.g. those returned by
2522 ioremap()), the ordering guarantees are as follows:
2524 1. All readX() and writeX() accesses to the same peripheral are ordered
2525 with respect to each other. This ensures that MMIO register accesses
2526 by the same CPU thread to a particular device will arrive in program
2529 2. A writeX() issued by a CPU thread holding a spinlock is ordered
2530 before a writeX() to the same peripheral from another CPU thread
2531 issued after a later acquisition of the same spinlock. This ensures
2532 that MMIO register writes to a particular device issued while holding
2533 a spinlock will arrive in an order consistent with acquisitions of
2536 3. A writeX() by a CPU thread to the peripheral will first wait for the
2537 completion of all prior writes to memory either issued by, or
2538 propagated to, the same thread. This ensures that writes by the CPU
2539 to an outbound DMA buffer allocated by dma_alloc_coherent() will be
2540 visible to a DMA engine when the CPU writes to its MMIO control
2541 register to trigger the transfer.
2543 4. A readX() by a CPU thread from the peripheral will complete before
2544 any subsequent reads from memory by the same thread can begin. This
2545 ensures that reads by the CPU from an incoming DMA buffer allocated
2546 by dma_alloc_coherent() will not see stale data after reading from
2547 the DMA engine's MMIO status register to establish that the DMA
2548 transfer has completed.
2550 5. A readX() by a CPU thread from the peripheral will complete before
2551 any subsequent delay() loop can begin execution on the same thread.
2552 This ensures that two MMIO register writes by the CPU to a peripheral
2553 will arrive at least 1us apart if the first write is immediately read
2554 back with readX() and udelay(1) is called prior to the second
2557 writel(42, DEVICE_REGISTER_0); // Arrives at the device...
2558 readl(DEVICE_REGISTER_0);
2560 writel(42, DEVICE_REGISTER_1); // ...at least 1us before this.
2562 The ordering properties of __iomem pointers obtained with non-default
2563 attributes (e.g. those returned by ioremap_wc()) are specific to the
2564 underlying architecture and therefore the guarantees listed above cannot
2565 generally be relied upon for accesses to these types of mappings.
2567 (*) readX_relaxed(), writeX_relaxed():
2569 These are similar to readX() and writeX(), but provide weaker memory
2570 ordering guarantees. Specifically, they do not guarantee ordering with
2571 respect to locking, normal memory accesses or delay() loops (i.e.
2572 bullets 2-5 above) but they are still guaranteed to be ordered with
2573 respect to other accesses from the same CPU thread to the same
2574 peripheral when operating on __iomem pointers mapped with the default
2577 (*) readsX(), writesX():
2579 The readsX() and writesX() MMIO accessors are designed for accessing
2580 register-based, memory-mapped FIFOs residing on peripherals that are not
2581 capable of performing DMA. Consequently, they provide only the ordering
2582 guarantees of readX_relaxed() and writeX_relaxed(), as documented above.
2586 The inX() and outX() accessors are intended to access legacy port-mapped
2587 I/O peripherals, which may require special instructions on some
2588 architectures (notably x86). The port number of the peripheral being
2589 accessed is passed as an argument.
2591 Since many CPU architectures ultimately access these peripherals via an
2592 internal virtual memory mapping, the portable ordering guarantees
2593 provided by inX() and outX() are the same as those provided by readX()
2594 and writeX() respectively when accessing a mapping with the default I/O
2597 Device drivers may expect outX() to emit a non-posted write transaction
2598 that waits for a completion response from the I/O peripheral before
2599 returning. This is not guaranteed by all architectures and is therefore
2600 not part of the portable ordering semantics.
2602 (*) insX(), outsX():
2604 As above, the insX() and outsX() accessors provide the same ordering
2605 guarantees as readsX() and writesX() respectively when accessing a
2606 mapping with the default I/O attributes.
2608 (*) ioreadX(), iowriteX():
2610 These will perform appropriately for the type of access they're actually
2611 doing, be it inX()/outX() or readX()/writeX().
2613 With the exception of the string accessors (insX(), outsX(), readsX() and
2614 writesX()), all of the above assume that the underlying peripheral is
2615 little-endian and will therefore perform byte-swapping operations on big-endian
2619 ========================================
2620 ASSUMED MINIMUM EXECUTION ORDERING MODEL
2621 ========================================
2623 It has to be assumed that the conceptual CPU is weakly-ordered but that it will
2624 maintain the appearance of program causality with respect to itself. Some CPUs
2625 (such as i386 or x86_64) are more constrained than others (such as powerpc or
2626 frv), and so the most relaxed case (namely DEC Alpha) must be assumed outside
2627 of arch-specific code.
2629 This means that it must be considered that the CPU will execute its instruction
2630 stream in any order it feels like - or even in parallel - provided that if an
2631 instruction in the stream depends on an earlier instruction, then that
2632 earlier instruction must be sufficiently complete[*] before the later
2633 instruction may proceed; in other words: provided that the appearance of
2634 causality is maintained.
2636 [*] Some instructions have more than one effect - such as changing the
2637 condition codes, changing registers or changing memory - and different
2638 instructions may depend on different effects.
2640 A CPU may also discard any instruction sequence that winds up having no
2641 ultimate effect. For example, if two adjacent instructions both load an
2642 immediate value into the same register, the first may be discarded.
2645 Similarly, it has to be assumed that compiler might reorder the instruction
2646 stream in any way it sees fit, again provided the appearance of causality is
2650 ============================
2651 THE EFFECTS OF THE CPU CACHE
2652 ============================
2654 The way cached memory operations are perceived across the system is affected to
2655 a certain extent by the caches that lie between CPUs and memory, and by the
2656 memory coherence system that maintains the consistency of state in the system.
2658 As far as the way a CPU interacts with another part of the system through the
2659 caches goes, the memory system has to include the CPU's caches, and memory
2660 barriers for the most part act at the interface between the CPU and its cache
2661 (memory barriers logically act on the dotted line in the following diagram):
2663 <--- CPU ---> : <----------- Memory ----------->
2665 +--------+ +--------+ : +--------+ +-----------+
2666 | | | | : | | | | +--------+
2667 | CPU | | Memory | : | CPU | | | | |
2668 | Core |--->| Access |----->| Cache |<-->| | | |
2669 | | | Queue | : | | | |--->| Memory |
2670 | | | | : | | | | | |
2671 +--------+ +--------+ : +--------+ | | | |
2672 : | Cache | +--------+
2674 : | Mechanism | +--------+
2675 +--------+ +--------+ : +--------+ | | | |
2676 | | | | : | | | | | |
2677 | CPU | | Memory | : | CPU | | |--->| Device |
2678 | Core |--->| Access |----->| Cache |<-->| | | |
2679 | | | Queue | : | | | | | |
2680 | | | | : | | | | +--------+
2681 +--------+ +--------+ : +--------+ +-----------+
2685 Although any particular load or store may not actually appear outside of the
2686 CPU that issued it since it may have been satisfied within the CPU's own cache,
2687 it will still appear as if the full memory access had taken place as far as the
2688 other CPUs are concerned since the cache coherency mechanisms will migrate the
2689 cacheline over to the accessing CPU and propagate the effects upon conflict.
2691 The CPU core may execute instructions in any order it deems fit, provided the
2692 expected program causality appears to be maintained. Some of the instructions
2693 generate load and store operations which then go into the queue of memory
2694 accesses to be performed. The core may place these in the queue in any order
2695 it wishes, and continue execution until it is forced to wait for an instruction
2698 What memory barriers are concerned with is controlling the order in which
2699 accesses cross from the CPU side of things to the memory side of things, and
2700 the order in which the effects are perceived to happen by the other observers
2703 [!] Memory barriers are _not_ needed within a given CPU, as CPUs always see
2704 their own loads and stores as if they had happened in program order.
2706 [!] MMIO or other device accesses may bypass the cache system. This depends on
2707 the properties of the memory window through which devices are accessed and/or
2708 the use of any special device communication instructions the CPU may have.
2711 CACHE COHERENCY VS DMA
2712 ----------------------
2714 Not all systems maintain cache coherency with respect to devices doing DMA. In
2715 such cases, a device attempting DMA may obtain stale data from RAM because
2716 dirty cache lines may be resident in the caches of various CPUs, and may not
2717 have been written back to RAM yet. To deal with this, the appropriate part of
2718 the kernel must flush the overlapping bits of cache on each CPU (and maybe
2719 invalidate them as well).
2721 In addition, the data DMA'd to RAM by a device may be overwritten by dirty
2722 cache lines being written back to RAM from a CPU's cache after the device has
2723 installed its own data, or cache lines present in the CPU's cache may simply
2724 obscure the fact that RAM has been updated, until at such time as the cacheline
2725 is discarded from the CPU's cache and reloaded. To deal with this, the
2726 appropriate part of the kernel must invalidate the overlapping bits of the
2729 See Documentation/core-api/cachetlb.rst for more information on cache management.
2732 CACHE COHERENCY VS MMIO
2733 -----------------------
2735 Memory mapped I/O usually takes place through memory locations that are part of
2736 a window in the CPU's memory space that has different properties assigned than
2737 the usual RAM directed window.
2739 Amongst these properties is usually the fact that such accesses bypass the
2740 caching entirely and go directly to the device buses. This means MMIO accesses
2741 may, in effect, overtake accesses to cached memory that were emitted earlier.
2742 A memory barrier isn't sufficient in such a case, but rather the cache must be
2743 flushed between the cached memory write and the MMIO access if the two are in
2747 =========================
2748 THE THINGS CPUS GET UP TO
2749 =========================
2751 A programmer might take it for granted that the CPU will perform memory
2752 operations in exactly the order specified, so that if the CPU is, for example,
2753 given the following piece of code to execute:
2761 they would then expect that the CPU will complete the memory operation for each
2762 instruction before moving on to the next one, leading to a definite sequence of
2763 operations as seen by external observers in the system:
2765 LOAD *A, STORE *B, LOAD *C, LOAD *D, STORE *E.
2768 Reality is, of course, much messier. With many CPUs and compilers, the above
2769 assumption doesn't hold because:
2771 (*) loads are more likely to need to be completed immediately to permit
2772 execution progress, whereas stores can often be deferred without a
2775 (*) loads may be done speculatively, and the result discarded should it prove
2776 to have been unnecessary;
2778 (*) loads may be done speculatively, leading to the result having been fetched
2779 at the wrong time in the expected sequence of events;
2781 (*) the order of the memory accesses may be rearranged to promote better use
2782 of the CPU buses and caches;
2784 (*) loads and stores may be combined to improve performance when talking to
2785 memory or I/O hardware that can do batched accesses of adjacent locations,
2786 thus cutting down on transaction setup costs (memory and PCI devices may
2787 both be able to do this); and
2789 (*) the CPU's data cache may affect the ordering, and while cache-coherency
2790 mechanisms may alleviate this - once the store has actually hit the cache
2791 - there's no guarantee that the coherency management will be propagated in
2792 order to other CPUs.
2794 So what another CPU, say, might actually observe from the above piece of code
2797 LOAD *A, ..., LOAD {*C,*D}, STORE *E, STORE *B
2799 (Where "LOAD {*C,*D}" is a combined load)
2802 However, it is guaranteed that a CPU will be self-consistent: it will see its
2803 _own_ accesses appear to be correctly ordered, without the need for a memory
2804 barrier. For instance with the following code:
2813 and assuming no intervention by an external influence, it can be assumed that
2814 the final result will appear to be:
2816 U == the original value of *A
2821 The code above may cause the CPU to generate the full sequence of memory
2824 U=LOAD *A, STORE *A=V, STORE *A=W, X=LOAD *A, STORE *A=Y, Z=LOAD *A
2826 in that order, but, without intervention, the sequence may have almost any
2827 combination of elements combined or discarded, provided the program's view
2828 of the world remains consistent. Note that READ_ONCE() and WRITE_ONCE()
2829 are -not- optional in the above example, as there are architectures
2830 where a given CPU might reorder successive loads to the same location.
2831 On such architectures, READ_ONCE() and WRITE_ONCE() do whatever is
2832 necessary to prevent this, for example, on Itanium the volatile casts
2833 used by READ_ONCE() and WRITE_ONCE() cause GCC to emit the special ld.acq
2834 and st.rel instructions (respectively) that prevent such reordering.
2836 The compiler may also combine, discard or defer elements of the sequence before
2837 the CPU even sees them.
2848 since, without either a write barrier or an WRITE_ONCE(), it can be
2849 assumed that the effect of the storage of V to *A is lost. Similarly:
2854 may, without a memory barrier or an READ_ONCE() and WRITE_ONCE(), be
2860 and the LOAD operation never appear outside of the CPU.
2863 AND THEN THERE'S THE ALPHA
2864 --------------------------
2866 The DEC Alpha CPU is one of the most relaxed CPUs there is. Not only that,
2867 some versions of the Alpha CPU have a split data cache, permitting them to have
2868 two semantically-related cache lines updated at separate times. This is where
2869 the data dependency barrier really becomes necessary as this synchronises both
2870 caches with the memory coherence system, thus making it seem like pointer
2871 changes vs new data occur in the right order.
2873 The Alpha defines the Linux kernel's memory model, although as of v4.15
2874 the Linux kernel's addition of smp_mb() to READ_ONCE() on Alpha greatly
2875 reduced its impact on the memory model.
2878 VIRTUAL MACHINE GUESTS
2879 ----------------------
2881 Guests running within virtual machines might be affected by SMP effects even if
2882 the guest itself is compiled without SMP support. This is an artifact of
2883 interfacing with an SMP host while running an UP kernel. Using mandatory
2884 barriers for this use-case would be possible but is often suboptimal.
2886 To handle this case optimally, low-level virt_mb() etc macros are available.
2887 These have the same effect as smp_mb() etc when SMP is enabled, but generate
2888 identical code for SMP and non-SMP systems. For example, virtual machine guests
2889 should use virt_mb() rather than smp_mb() when synchronizing against a
2890 (possibly SMP) host.
2892 These are equivalent to smp_mb() etc counterparts in all other respects,
2893 in particular, they do not control MMIO effects: to control
2894 MMIO effects, use mandatory barriers.
2904 Memory barriers can be used to implement circular buffering without the need
2905 of a lock to serialise the producer with the consumer. See:
2907 Documentation/core-api/circular-buffers.rst
2916 Alpha AXP Architecture Reference Manual, Second Edition (Sites & Witek,
2918 Chapter 5.2: Physical Address Space Characteristics
2919 Chapter 5.4: Caches and Write Buffers
2920 Chapter 5.5: Data Sharing
2921 Chapter 5.6: Read/Write Ordering
2923 AMD64 Architecture Programmer's Manual Volume 2: System Programming
2924 Chapter 7.1: Memory-Access Ordering
2925 Chapter 7.4: Buffering and Combining Memory Writes
2927 ARM Architecture Reference Manual (ARMv8, for ARMv8-A architecture profile)
2928 Chapter B2: The AArch64 Application Level Memory Model
2930 IA-32 Intel Architecture Software Developer's Manual, Volume 3:
2931 System Programming Guide
2932 Chapter 7.1: Locked Atomic Operations
2933 Chapter 7.2: Memory Ordering
2934 Chapter 7.4: Serializing Instructions
2936 The SPARC Architecture Manual, Version 9
2937 Chapter 8: Memory Models
2938 Appendix D: Formal Specification of the Memory Models
2939 Appendix J: Programming with the Memory Models
2941 Storage in the PowerPC (Stone and Fitzgerald)
2943 UltraSPARC Programmer Reference Manual
2944 Chapter 5: Memory Accesses and Cacheability
2945 Chapter 15: Sparc-V9 Memory Models
2947 UltraSPARC III Cu User's Manual
2948 Chapter 9: Memory Models
2950 UltraSPARC IIIi Processor User's Manual
2951 Chapter 8: Memory Models
2953 UltraSPARC Architecture 2005
2955 Appendix D: Formal Specifications of the Memory Models
2957 UltraSPARC T1 Supplement to the UltraSPARC Architecture 2005
2958 Chapter 8: Memory Models
2959 Appendix F: Caches and Cache Coherency
2961 Solaris Internals, Core Kernel Architecture, p63-68:
2962 Chapter 3.3: Hardware Considerations for Locks and
2965 Unix Systems for Modern Architectures, Symmetric Multiprocessing and Caching
2966 for Kernel Programmers:
2967 Chapter 13: Other Memory Models
2969 Intel Itanium Architecture Software Developer's Manual: Volume 1:
2970 Section 2.6: Speculation
2971 Section 4.4: Memory Access
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