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authorMatthew Wilcox <matthew@wil.cx>2008-04-23 15:20:41 +0400
committerMatthew Wilcox <willy@linux.intel.com>2008-07-24 16:29:40 +0400
commit78305de2f99e9f43ab860dd95bb430b20e26c695 (patch)
tree18bd576b2f6c9dd3f91ed40188fa13690cf311bf /Documentation
parent338b9bb3adac0d2c5a1e180491d9b001d624c402 (diff)
downloadlinux-78305de2f99e9f43ab860dd95bb430b20e26c695.tar.xz
Remove mention of semaphores from kernel-locking
Since the consensus seems to be to eliminate semaphores where possible, we shouldn't be educating people about how to use them as locks. Use mutexes instead. Semaphores should be described in a separate document if we end up keeping them. Signed-off-by: Matthew Wilcox <willy@linux.intel.com> Acked-by: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/DocBook/kernel-locking.tmpl57
1 files changed, 24 insertions, 33 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/DocBook/kernel-locking.tmpl b/Documentation/DocBook/kernel-locking.tmpl
index 2510763295d0..084f6ad7b7a0 100644
--- a/Documentation/DocBook/kernel-locking.tmpl
+++ b/Documentation/DocBook/kernel-locking.tmpl
@@ -219,10 +219,10 @@
</para>
<sect1 id="lock-intro">
- <title>Three Main Types of Kernel Locks: Spinlocks, Mutexes and Semaphores</title>
+ <title>Two Main Types of Kernel Locks: Spinlocks and Mutexes</title>
<para>
- There are three main types of kernel locks. The fundamental type
+ There are two main types of kernel locks. The fundamental type
is the spinlock
(<filename class="headerfile">include/asm/spinlock.h</filename>),
which is a very simple single-holder lock: if you can't get the
@@ -240,14 +240,6 @@
use a spinlock instead.
</para>
<para>
- The third type is a semaphore
- (<filename class="headerfile">include/linux/semaphore.h</filename>): it
- can have more than one holder at any time (the number decided at
- initialization time), although it is most commonly used as a
- single-holder lock (a mutex). If you can't get a semaphore, your
- task will be suspended and later on woken up - just like for mutexes.
- </para>
- <para>
Neither type of lock is recursive: see
<xref linkend="deadlock"/>.
</para>
@@ -278,7 +270,7 @@
</para>
<para>
- Semaphores still exist, because they are required for
+ Mutexes still exist, because they are required for
synchronization between <firstterm linkend="gloss-usercontext">user
contexts</firstterm>, as we will see below.
</para>
@@ -289,18 +281,17 @@
<para>
If you have a data structure which is only ever accessed from
- user context, then you can use a simple semaphore
- (<filename>linux/linux/semaphore.h</filename>) to protect it. This
- is the most trivial case: you initialize the semaphore to the number
- of resources available (usually 1), and call
- <function>down_interruptible()</function> to grab the semaphore, and
- <function>up()</function> to release it. There is also a
- <function>down()</function>, which should be avoided, because it
+ user context, then you can use a simple mutex
+ (<filename>include/linux/mutex.h</filename>) to protect it. This
+ is the most trivial case: you initialize the mutex. Then you can
+ call <function>mutex_lock_interruptible()</function> to grab the mutex,
+ and <function>mutex_unlock()</function> to release it. There is also a
+ <function>mutex_lock()</function>, which should be avoided, because it
will not return if a signal is received.
</para>
<para>
- Example: <filename>linux/net/core/netfilter.c</filename> allows
+ Example: <filename>net/netfilter/nf_sockopt.c</filename> allows
registration of new <function>setsockopt()</function> and
<function>getsockopt()</function> calls, with
<function>nf_register_sockopt()</function>. Registration and
@@ -515,7 +506,7 @@
<listitem>
<para>
If you are in a process context (any syscall) and want to
- lock other process out, use a semaphore. You can take a semaphore
+ lock other process out, use a mutex. You can take a mutex
and sleep (<function>copy_from_user*(</function> or
<function>kmalloc(x,GFP_KERNEL)</function>).
</para>
@@ -662,7 +653,7 @@
<entry>SLBH</entry>
<entry>SLBH</entry>
<entry>SLBH</entry>
-<entry>DI</entry>
+<entry>MLI</entry>
<entry>None</entry>
</row>
@@ -692,8 +683,8 @@
<entry>spin_lock_bh</entry>
</row>
<row>
-<entry>DI</entry>
-<entry>down_interruptible</entry>
+<entry>MLI</entry>
+<entry>mutex_lock_interruptible</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
@@ -1310,7 +1301,7 @@ as Alan Cox says, <quote>Lock data, not code</quote>.
<para>
There is a coding bug where a piece of code tries to grab a
spinlock twice: it will spin forever, waiting for the lock to
- be released (spinlocks, rwlocks and semaphores are not
+ be released (spinlocks, rwlocks and mutexes are not
recursive in Linux). This is trivial to diagnose: not a
stay-up-five-nights-talk-to-fluffy-code-bunnies kind of
problem.
@@ -1335,7 +1326,7 @@ as Alan Cox says, <quote>Lock data, not code</quote>.
<para>
This complete lockup is easy to diagnose: on SMP boxes the
- watchdog timer or compiling with <symbol>DEBUG_SPINLOCKS</symbol> set
+ watchdog timer or compiling with <symbol>DEBUG_SPINLOCK</symbol> set
(<filename>include/linux/spinlock.h</filename>) will show this up
immediately when it happens.
</para>
@@ -1558,7 +1549,7 @@ the amount of locking which needs to be done.
<title>Read/Write Lock Variants</title>
<para>
- Both spinlocks and semaphores have read/write variants:
+ Both spinlocks and mutexes have read/write variants:
<type>rwlock_t</type> and <structname>struct rw_semaphore</structname>.
These divide users into two classes: the readers and the writers. If
you are only reading the data, you can get a read lock, but to write to
@@ -1681,7 +1672,7 @@ the amount of locking which needs to be done.
#include &lt;linux/slab.h&gt;
#include &lt;linux/string.h&gt;
+#include &lt;linux/rcupdate.h&gt;
- #include &lt;linux/semaphore.h&gt;
+ #include &lt;linux/mutex.h&gt;
#include &lt;asm/errno.h&gt;
struct object
@@ -1913,7 +1904,7 @@ machines due to caching.
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
- <function> put_user()</function>
+ <function>put_user()</function>
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
@@ -1927,13 +1918,13 @@ machines due to caching.
<listitem>
<para>
- <function>down_interruptible()</function> and
- <function>down()</function>
+ <function>mutex_lock_interruptible()</function> and
+ <function>mutex_lock()</function>
</para>
<para>
- There is a <function>down_trylock()</function> which can be
+ There is a <function>mutex_trylock()</function> which can be
used inside interrupt context, as it will not sleep.
- <function>up()</function> will also never sleep.
+ <function>mutex_unlock()</function> will also never sleep.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
@@ -2023,7 +2014,7 @@ machines due to caching.
<para>
Prior to 2.5, or when <symbol>CONFIG_PREEMPT</symbol> is
unset, processes in user context inside the kernel would not
- preempt each other (ie. you had that CPU until you have it up,
+ preempt each other (ie. you had that CPU until you gave it up,
except for interrupts). With the addition of
<symbol>CONFIG_PREEMPT</symbol> in 2.5.4, this changed: when
in user context, higher priority tasks can "cut in": spinlocks