linux/Documentation/atomic_bitops.txt
Hector Martin 415d832497 locking/atomic: Make test_and_*_bit() ordered on failure
These operations are documented as always ordered in
include/asm-generic/bitops/instrumented-atomic.h, and producer-consumer
type use cases where one side needs to ensure a flag is left pending
after some shared data was updated rely on this ordering, even in the
failure case.

This is the case with the workqueue code, which currently suffers from a
reproducible ordering violation on Apple M1 platforms (which are
notoriously out-of-order) that ends up causing the TTY layer to fail to
deliver data to userspace properly under the right conditions.  This
change fixes that bug.

Change the documentation to restrict the "no order on failure" story to
the _lock() variant (for which it makes sense), and remove the
early-exit from the generic implementation, which is what causes the
missing barrier semantics in that case.  Without this, the remaining
atomic op is fully ordered (including on ARM64 LSE, as of recent
versions of the architecture spec).

Suggested-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Fixes: e986a0d6cb ("locking/atomics, asm-generic/bitops/atomic.h: Rewrite using atomic_*() APIs")
Fixes: 61e02392d3 ("locking/atomic/bitops: Document and clarify ordering semantics for failed test_and_{}_bit()")
Signed-off-by: Hector Martin <marcan@marcan.st>
Acked-by: Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2022-08-16 09:19:43 -07:00

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=============
Atomic bitops
=============
While our bitmap_{}() functions are non-atomic, we have a number of operations
operating on single bits in a bitmap that are atomic.
API
---
The single bit operations are:
Non-RMW ops:
test_bit()
RMW atomic operations without return value:
{set,clear,change}_bit()
clear_bit_unlock()
RMW atomic operations with return value:
test_and_{set,clear,change}_bit()
test_and_set_bit_lock()
Barriers:
smp_mb__{before,after}_atomic()
All RMW atomic operations have a '__' prefixed variant which is non-atomic.
SEMANTICS
---------
Non-atomic ops:
In particular __clear_bit_unlock() suffers the same issue as atomic_set(),
which is why the generic version maps to clear_bit_unlock(), see atomic_t.txt.
RMW ops:
The test_and_{}_bit() operations return the original value of the bit.
ORDERING
--------
Like with atomic_t, the rule of thumb is:
- non-RMW operations are unordered;
- RMW operations that have no return value are unordered;
- RMW operations that have a return value are fully ordered.
- RMW operations that are conditional are unordered on FAILURE,
otherwise the above rules apply. In the case of test_and_set_bit_lock(),
if the bit in memory is unchanged by the operation then it is deemed to have
failed.
Except for a successful test_and_set_bit_lock() which has ACQUIRE semantics and
clear_bit_unlock() which has RELEASE semantics.
Since a platform only has a single means of achieving atomic operations
the same barriers as for atomic_t are used, see atomic_t.txt.