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membarrier.2: New page documenting membarrier() system call
Signed-off-by: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com> Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com> Cc: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com> Cc: Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org> Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com> Cc: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org> Cc: Nicholas Miell <nmiell@comcast.net> Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com> Cc: Alan Cox <gnomes@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> Cc: Lai Jiangshan <laijs@cn.fujitsu.com> Cc: Stephen Hemminger <stephen@networkplumber.org> Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org> Cc: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Cc: Pranith Kumar <bobby.prani@gmail.com> Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com> Cc: Shuah Khan <shuahkh@osg.samsung.com> Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> CC: linux-api@vger.kernel.org Signed-off-by: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
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Mathieu Desnoyers
Michael Kerrisk
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.\" Copyright 2015 Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com>
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.\"
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.\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM)
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.\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
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.\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
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.\" preserved on all copies.
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.\"
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.\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
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.\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
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.\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
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.\" permission notice identical to this one.
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.\"
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.\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
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.\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date. The author(s) assume no
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.\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
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.\" the use of the information contained herein. The author(s) may not
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.\" have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual,
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.\" which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
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.\" professionally.
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.\"
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.\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
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.\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
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.\" %%%LICENSE_END
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.\"
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.TH MEMBARRIER 2 2015-04-15 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
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.SH NAME
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membarrier \- issue memory barriers on a set of threads
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.SH SYNOPSIS
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.B #include <linux/membarrier.h>
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.sp
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.BI "int membarrier(int " cmd ", int " flags ");
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.sp
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.SH DESCRIPTION
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The membarrier system call helps reducing overhead of memory barrier
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instructions required to order memory accesses on multi-core systems.
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However, this system call is heavier than a memory barrier, so using it
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effectively is
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.B not
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as simple as replacing memory barriers with this
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system call, but requires understanding the following:
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Use of memory barriers needs to be done taking into account that a
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memory barrier always needs to be either matched with its memory barrier
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counterparts, or that the architecture's memory model don't require the
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matching barriers.
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There are cases where one side of the matching barriers (which we will
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refer to as "fast side") is executed much more often than the other
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(which we will refer to as "slow side"). This is a prime target for the
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membarrier system call. The key idea is to replace, for these matching
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barriers, the fast side memory barriers by simple compiler barriers,
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e.g.:
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asm volatile ("" : : : "memory")
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and replace the slow side memory barriers by the membarrier system call.
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This will add overhead to the slow side, and remove overhead from the
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fast side, thus resulting in an overall performance increase as long as
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the slow side is infrequent enough that the membarrier system call
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overhead does not counterweight the performance gain on the fast side.
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Examples where this system call can be useful includes implementations
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of Ready-Copy Update librarires, and garbage collectors.
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The
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.I cmd
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argument is one of the following:
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.TP
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.B MEMBARRIER_CMD_QUERY
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Query the set of supported commands. It returns a bitmask of supported
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commands.
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.TP
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.B MEMBARRIER_CMD_SHARED
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Ensure that all threads from all processes on the system pass through a
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state where all memory accesses to user-space addresses match program
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order between entry to and return from the membarrier system call.
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All threads on the system are targeted by this command. This command
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returns 0.
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.PP
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The
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.I cmd
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argument expects a one-hot bit of a bitmask, except for the
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.B MEMBARRIER_CMD_QUERY
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command which has the value 0. This query command is always supported,
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even though it is not part of the bitmask.
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.PP
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The
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.I flags
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argument is currently unused.
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.PP
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All memory accesses performed in program order from each targeted thread
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is guaranteed to be ordered with respect to sys_membarrier(). If we use
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the semantic "barrier()" to represent a compiler barrier forcing memory
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accesses to be performed in program order across the barrier, and
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smp_mb() to represent explicit memory barriers forcing full memory
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ordering across the barrier, we have the following ordering table for
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each pair of barrier(), sys_membarrier() and smp_mb():
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The pair ordering is detailed as (O: ordered, X: not ordered):
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barrier() smp_mb() sys_membarrier()
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barrier() X X O
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smp_mb() X O O
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sys_membarrier() O O O
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.SH RETURN VALUE
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On success, this system call returns zero. On error, \-1 is returned,
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and
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.I errno
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is set appropriately.
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For a given command, with flags argument set to 0, this system call is
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guaranteed to always return the same value until reboot. Therefore, it
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is sufficient to handle errors in a program or library initialization
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function. Further calls with the same parameters will lead to the same
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result. Therefore, for flag argument set to 0, error handling is only
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required for the first calls to the
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.BR membarrier ()
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system call in an application.
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.SH ERRORS
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.TP
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.B ENOSYS
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System call is not implemented.
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.TP
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.B EINVAL
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.I cmd
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is invalid or
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.I flags
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is non-zero.
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.SH VERSIONS
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The membarrier system call was added in Linux 4.3.
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.SH CONFORMING TO
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.BR membarrier ()
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is Linux-specific.
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.SH NOTES
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A memory barrier instruction is part of the instruction set of
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architectures with weakly-ordered memory models. It orders memory
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accesses prior to the barrier and after the barrier with respect to
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matching barriers on other cores. For instance, a load fence can order
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loads prior to and following that fence with respect to stores ordered
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by store fences.
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Program order is the order in which instructions are ordered in the
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program assembly code.
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.SH EXAMPLE
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Assuming a multithreaded application where "fast_path()" is executed
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very frequently, and where "slow_path()" is executed infrequently, the
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following code (x86) can be transformed using
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.BR membarrier()
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:
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.nf
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#include <stdlib.h>
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static volatile int a, b;
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static void fast_path(void)
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{
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int read_a, read_b;
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read_b = b;
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asm volatile ("mfence" : : : "memory");
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read_a = a;
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/* read_b == 1 implies read_a == 1. */
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if (read_b == 1 && read_a == 0)
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abort();
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}
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static void slow_path(void)
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{
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a = 1;
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asm volatile ("mfence" : : : "memory");
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b = 1;
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}
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int main(int argc, char **argv)
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{
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/*
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* Real applications would call fast_path() and slow_path() from
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* different threads. Call those from main() to keep this
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* example short.
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*/
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slow_path();
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fast_path();
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exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
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}
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.fi
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The code above transformed to use the
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.BR membarrier()
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system call becomes:
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.nf
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#define _GNU_SOURCE
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#include <stdlib.h>
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#include <stdio.h>
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#include <unistd.h>
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#include <sys/syscall.h>
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#include <linux/membarrier.h>
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static volatile int a, b;
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static int membarrier(int cmd, int flags)
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{
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return syscall(__NR_membarrier, cmd, flags);
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}
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static int init_membarrier(void)
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{
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int ret;
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/* Ensure that membarrier is supported. */
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ret = membarrier(MEMBARRIER_CMD_QUERY, 0);
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if (ret < 0) {
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perror("membarrier");
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return -1;
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}
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if (!(ret & MEMBARRIER_CMD_SHARED)) {
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fprintf(stderr,
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"membarrier does not support MEMBARRIER_CMD_SHARED.\\n");
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return -1;
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}
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return 0;
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}
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static void fast_path(void)
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{
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int read_a, read_b;
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read_b = b;
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asm volatile ("" : : : "memory");
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read_a = a;
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/* read_b == 1 implies read_a == 1. */
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if (read_b == 1 && read_a == 0)
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abort();
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}
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static void slow_path(void)
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{
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a = 1;
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membarrier(MEMBARRIER_CMD_SHARED, 0);
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b = 1;
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}
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int main(int argc, char **argv)
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{
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if (init_membarrier())
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exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
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/*
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* Real applications would call fast_path() and slow_path() from
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* different threads. Call those from main() to keep this
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* example short.
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*/
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slow_path();
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fast_path();
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exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
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}
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.fi
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