.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0

================================
Review Checklist for RCU Patches
================================


This document contains a checklist for producing and reviewing patches
that make use of RCU.  Violating any of the rules listed below will
result in the same sorts of problems that leaving out a locking primitive
would cause.  This list is based on experiences reviewing such patches
over a rather long period of time, but improvements are always welcome!

0.      Is RCU being applied to a read-mostly situation?  If the data
        structure is updated more than about 10% of the time, then you
        should strongly consider some other approach, unless detailed
        performance measurements show that RCU is nonetheless the right
        tool for the job.  Yes, RCU does reduce read-side overhead by
        increasing write-side overhead, which is exactly why normal uses
        of RCU will do much more reading than updating.

        Another exception is where performance is not an issue, and RCU
        provides a simpler implementation.  An example of this situation
        is the dynamic NMI code in the Linux 2.6 kernel, at least on
        architectures where NMIs are rare.

        Yet another exception is where the low real-time latency of RCU's
        read-side primitives is critically important.

        One final exception is where RCU readers are used to prevent
        the ABA problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABA_problem)
        for lockless updates.  This does result in the mildly
        counter-intuitive situation where rcu_read_lock() and
        rcu_read_unlock() are used to protect updates, however, this
        approach provides the same potential simplifications that garbage
        collectors do.

1.      Does the update code have proper mutual exclusion?

        RCU does allow -readers- to run (almost) naked, but -writers- must
        still use some sort of mutual exclusion, such as:

        a.      locking,
        b.      atomic operations, or
        c.      restricting updates to a single task.

        If you choose #b, be prepared to describe how you have handled
        memory barriers on weakly ordered machines (pretty much all of
        them -- even x86 allows later loads to be reordered to precede
        earlier stores), and be prepared to explain why this added
        complexity is worthwhile.  If you choose #c, be prepared to
        explain how this single task does not become a major bottleneck on
        big multiprocessor machines (for example, if the task is updating
        information relating to itself that other tasks can read, there
        by definition can be no bottleneck).  Note that the definition
        of "large" has changed significantly:  Eight CPUs was "large"
        in the year 2000, but a hundred CPUs was unremarkable in 2017.

2.      Do the RCU read-side critical sections make proper use of
        rcu_read_lock() and friends?  These primitives are needed
        to prevent grace periods from ending prematurely, which
        could result in data being unceremoniously freed out from
        under your read-side code, which can greatly increase the
        actuarial risk of your kernel.

        As a rough rule of thumb, any dereference of an RCU-protected
        pointer must be covered by rcu_read_lock(), rcu_read_lock_bh(),
        rcu_read_lock_sched(), or by the appropriate update-side lock.
        Disabling of preemption can serve as rcu_read_lock_sched(), but
        is less readable and prevents lockdep from detecting locking issues.

        Letting RCU-protected pointers "leak" out of an RCU read-side
        critical section is every bit as bad as letting them leak out
        from under a lock.  Unless, of course, you have arranged some
        other means of protection, such as a lock or a reference count
        -before- letting them out of the RCU read-side critical section.

3.      Does the update code tolerate concurrent accesses?

        The whole point of RCU is to permit readers to run without
        any locks or atomic operations.  This means that readers will
        be running while updates are in progress.  There are a number
        of ways to handle this concurrency, depending on the situation:

        a.      Use the RCU variants of the list and hlist update
                primitives to add, remove, and replace elements on
                an RCU-protected list.  Alternatively, use the other
                RCU-protected data structures that have been added to
                the Linux kernel.

                This is almost always the best approach.

        b.      Proceed as in (a) above, but also maintain per-element
                locks (that are acquired by both readers and writers)
                that guard per-element state.  Of course, fields that
                the readers refrain from accessing can be guarded by
                some other lock acquired only by updaters, if desired.

                This works quite well, also.

        c.      Make updates appear atomic to readers.  For example,
                pointer updates to properly aligned fields will
                appear atomic, as will individual atomic primitives.
                Sequences of operations performed under a lock will -not-
                appear to be atomic to RCU readers, nor will sequences
                of multiple atomic primitives.

                This can work, but is starting to get a bit tricky.

        d.      Carefully order the updates and the reads so that
                readers see valid data at all phases of the update.
                This is often more difficult than it sounds, especially
                given modern CPUs' tendency to reorder memory references.
                One must usually liberally sprinkle memory barriers
                (smp_wmb(), smp_rmb(), smp_mb()) through the code,
                making it difficult to understand and to test.

                It is usually better to group the changing data into
                a separate structure, so that the change may be made
                to appear atomic by updating a pointer to reference
                a new structure containing updated values.

4.      Weakly ordered CPUs pose special challenges.  Almost all CPUs
        are weakly ordered -- even x86 CPUs allow later loads to be
        reordered to precede earlier stores.  RCU code must take all of
        the following measures to prevent memory-corruption problems:

        a.      Readers must maintain proper ordering of their memory
                accesses.  The rcu_dereference() primitive ensures that
                the CPU picks up the pointer before it picks up the data
                that the pointer points to.  This really is necessary
                on Alpha CPUs.

                The rcu_dereference() primitive is also an excellent
                documentation aid, letting the person reading the
                code know exactly which pointers are protected by RCU.
                Please note that compilers can also reorder code, and
                they are becoming increasingly aggressive about doing
                just that.  The rcu_dereference() primitive therefore also
                prevents destructive compiler optimizations.  However,
                with a bit of devious creativity, it is possible to
                mishandle the return value from rcu_dereference().
                Please see rcu_dereference.txt in this directory for
                more information.

                The rcu_dereference() primitive is used by the
                various "_rcu()" list-traversal primitives, such
                as the list_for_each_entry_rcu().  Note that it is
                perfectly legal (if redundant) for update-side code to
                use rcu_dereference() and the "_rcu()" list-traversal
                primitives.  This is particularly useful in code that
                is common to readers and updaters.  However, lockdep
                will complain if you access rcu_dereference() outside
                of an RCU read-side critical section.  See lockdep.txt
                to learn what to do about this.

                Of course, neither rcu_dereference() nor the "_rcu()"
                list-traversal primitives can substitute for a good
                concurrency design coordinating among multiple updaters.

        b.      If the list macros are being used, the list_add_tail_rcu()
                and list_add_rcu() primitives must be used in order
                to prevent weakly ordered machines from misordering
                structure initialization and pointer planting.
                Similarly, if the hlist macros are being used, the
                hlist_add_head_rcu() primitive is required.

        c.      If the list macros are being used, the list_del_rcu()
                primitive must be used to keep list_del()'s pointer
                poisoning from inflicting toxic effects on concurrent
                readers.  Similarly, if the hlist macros are being used,
                the hlist_del_rcu() primitive is required.

                The list_replace_rcu() and hlist_replace_rcu() primitives
                may be used to replace an old structure with a new one
                in their respective types of RCU-protected lists.

        d.      Rules similar to (4b) and (4c) apply to the "hlist_nulls"
                type of RCU-protected linked lists.

        e.      Updates must ensure that initialization of a given
                structure happens before pointers to that structure are
                publicized.  Use the rcu_assign_pointer() primitive
                when publicizing a pointer to a structure that can
                be traversed by an RCU read-side critical section.

5.      If call_rcu() or call_srcu() is used, the callback function will
        be called from softirq context.  In particular, it cannot block.

6.      Since synchronize_rcu() can block, it cannot be called
        from any sort of irq context.  The same rule applies
        for synchronize_srcu(), synchronize_rcu_expedited(), and
        synchronize_srcu_expedited().

        The expedited forms of these primitives have the same semantics
        as the non-expedited forms, but expediting is both expensive and
        (with the exception of synchronize_srcu_expedited()) unfriendly
        to real-time workloads.  Use of the expedited primitives should
        be restricted to rare configuration-change operations that would
        not normally be undertaken while a real-time workload is running.
        However, real-time workloads can use rcupdate.rcu_normal kernel
        boot parameter to completely disable expedited grace periods,
        though this might have performance implications.

        In particular, if you find yourself invoking one of the expedited
        primitives repeatedly in a loop, please do everyone a favor:
        Restructure your code so that it batches the updates, allowing
        a single non-expedited primitive to cover the entire batch.
        This will very likely be faster than the loop containing the
        expedited primitive, and will be much much easier on the rest
        of the system, especially to real-time workloads running on
        the rest of the system.

7.      As of v4.20, a given kernel implements only one RCU flavor, which
        is RCU-sched for PREEMPTION=n and RCU-preempt for PREEMPTION=y.
        If the updater uses call_rcu() or synchronize_rcu(), then
        the corresponding readers may use:  (1) rcu_read_lock() and
        rcu_read_unlock(), (2) any pair of primitives that disables
        and re-enables softirq, for example, rcu_read_lock_bh() and
        rcu_read_unlock_bh(), or (3) any pair of primitives that disables
        and re-enables preemption, for example, rcu_read_lock_sched() and
        rcu_read_unlock_sched().  If the updater uses synchronize_srcu()
        or call_srcu(), then the corresponding readers must use
        srcu_read_lock() and srcu_read_unlock(), and with the same
        srcu_struct.  The rules for the expedited RCU grace-period-wait
        primitives are the same as for their non-expedited counterparts.

        If the updater uses call_rcu_tasks() or synchronize_rcu_tasks(),
        then the readers must refrain from executing voluntary
        context switches, that is, from blocking.  If the updater uses
        call_rcu_tasks_trace() or synchronize_rcu_tasks_trace(), then
        the corresponding readers must use rcu_read_lock_trace() and
        rcu_read_unlock_trace().  If an updater uses call_rcu_tasks_rude()
        or synchronize_rcu_tasks_rude(), then the corresponding readers
        must use anything that disables interrupts.

        Mixing things up will result in confusion and broken kernels, and
        has even resulted in an exploitable security issue.  Therefore,
        when using non-obvious pairs of primitives, commenting is
        of course a must.  One example of non-obvious pairing is
        the XDP feature in networking, which calls BPF programs from
        network-driver NAPI (softirq) context.  BPF relies heavily on RCU
        protection for its data structures, but because the BPF program
        invocation happens entirely within a single local_bh_disable()
        section in a NAPI poll cycle, this usage is safe.  The reason
        that this usage is safe is that readers can use anything that
        disables BH when updaters use call_rcu() or synchronize_rcu().

8.      Although synchronize_rcu() is slower than is call_rcu(), it
        usually results in simpler code.  So, unless update performance is
        critically important, the updaters cannot block, or the latency of
        synchronize_rcu() is visible from userspace, synchronize_rcu()
        should be used in preference to call_rcu().  Furthermore,
        kfree_rcu() usually results in even simpler code than does
        synchronize_rcu() without synchronize_rcu()'s multi-millisecond
        latency.  So please take advantage of kfree_rcu()'s "fire and
        forget" memory-freeing capabilities where it applies.

        An especially important property of the synchronize_rcu()
        primitive is that it automatically self-limits: if grace periods
        are delayed for whatever reason, then the synchronize_rcu()
        primitive will correspondingly delay updates.  In contrast,
        code using call_rcu() should explicitly limit update rate in
        cases where grace periods are delayed, as failing to do so can
        result in excessive realtime latencies or even OOM conditions.

        Ways of gaining this self-limiting property when using call_rcu()
        include:

        a.      Keeping a count of the number of data-structure elements
                used by the RCU-protected data structure, including
                those waiting for a grace period to elapse.  Enforce a
                limit on this number, stalling updates as needed to allow
                previously deferred frees to complete.  Alternatively,
                limit only the number awaiting deferred free rather than
                the total number of elements.

                One way to stall the updates is to acquire the update-side
                mutex.  (Don't try this with a spinlock -- other CPUs
                spinning on the lock could prevent the grace period
                from ever ending.)  Another way to stall the updates
                is for the updates to use a wrapper function around
                the memory allocator, so that this wrapper function
                simulates OOM when there is too much memory awaiting an
                RCU grace period.  There are of course many other
                variations on this theme.

        b.      Limiting update rate.  For example, if updates occur only
                once per hour, then no explicit rate limiting is
                required, unless your system is already badly broken.
                Older versions of the dcache subsystem take this approach,
                guarding updates with a global lock, limiting their rate.

        c.      Trusted update -- if updates can only be done manually by
                superuser or some other trusted user, then it might not
                be necessary to automatically limit them.  The theory
                here is that superuser already has lots of ways to crash
                the machine.

        d.      Periodically invoke synchronize_rcu(), permitting a limited
                number of updates per grace period.

        The same cautions apply to call_srcu() and kfree_rcu().

        Note that although these primitives do take action to avoid memory
        exhaustion when any given CPU has too many callbacks, a determined
        user could still exhaust memory.  This is especially the case
        if a system with a large number of CPUs has been configured to
        offload all of its RCU callbacks onto a single CPU, or if the
        system has relatively little free memory.

9.      All RCU list-traversal primitives, which include
        rcu_dereference(), list_for_each_entry_rcu(), and
        list_for_each_safe_rcu(), must be either within an RCU read-side
        critical section or must be protected by appropriate update-side
        locks.  RCU read-side critical sections are delimited by
        rcu_read_lock() and rcu_read_unlock(), or by similar primitives
        such as rcu_read_lock_bh() and rcu_read_unlock_bh(), in which
        case the matching rcu_dereference() primitive must be used in
        order to keep lockdep happy, in this case, rcu_dereference_bh().

        The reason that it is permissible to use RCU list-traversal
        primitives when the update-side lock is held is that doing so
        can be quite helpful in reducing code bloat when common code is
        shared between readers and updaters.  Additional primitives
        are provided for this case, as discussed in lockdep.txt.

        One exception to this rule is when data is only ever added to
        the linked data structure, and is never removed during any
        time that readers might be accessing that structure.  In such
        cases, READ_ONCE() may be used in place of rcu_dereference()
        and the read-side markers (rcu_read_lock() and rcu_read_unlock(),
        for example) may be omitted.

10.     Conversely, if you are in an RCU read-side critical section,
        and you don't hold the appropriate update-side lock, you -must-
        use the "_rcu()" variants of the list macros.  Failing to do so
        will break Alpha, cause aggressive compilers to generate bad code,
        and confuse people trying to read your code.

11.     Any lock acquired by an RCU callback must be acquired elsewhere
        with softirq disabled, e.g., via spin_lock_irqsave(),
        spin_lock_bh(), etc.  Failing to disable softirq on a given
        acquisition of that lock will result in deadlock as soon as
        the RCU softirq handler happens to run your RCU callback while
        interrupting that acquisition's critical section.

12.     RCU callbacks can be and are executed in parallel.  In many cases,
        the callback code simply wrappers around kfree(), so that this
        is not an issue (or, more accurately, to the extent that it is
        an issue, the memory-allocator locking handles it).  However,
        if the callbacks do manipulate a shared data structure, they
        must use whatever locking or other synchronization is required
        to safely access and/or modify that data structure.

        Do not assume that RCU callbacks will be executed on the same
        CPU that executed the corresponding call_rcu() or call_srcu().
        For example, if a given CPU goes offline while having an RCU
        callback pending, then that RCU callback will execute on some
        surviving CPU.  (If this was not the case, a self-spawning RCU
        callback would prevent the victim CPU from ever going offline.)
        Furthermore, CPUs designated by rcu_nocbs= might well -always-
        have their RCU callbacks executed on some other CPUs, in fact,
        for some  real-time workloads, this is the whole point of using
        the rcu_nocbs= kernel boot parameter.

13.     Unlike other forms of RCU, it -is- permissible to block in an
        SRCU read-side critical section (demarked by srcu_read_lock()
        and srcu_read_unlock()), hence the "SRCU": "sleepable RCU".
        Please note that if you don't need to sleep in read-side critical
        sections, you should be using RCU rather than SRCU, because RCU
        is almost always faster and easier to use than is SRCU.

        Also unlike other forms of RCU, explicit initialization and
        cleanup is required either at build time via DEFINE_SRCU()
        or DEFINE_STATIC_SRCU() or at runtime via init_srcu_struct()
        and cleanup_srcu_struct().  These last two are passed a
        "struct srcu_struct" that defines the scope of a given
        SRCU domain.  Once initialized, the srcu_struct is passed
        to srcu_read_lock(), srcu_read_unlock() synchronize_srcu(),
        synchronize_srcu_expedited(), and call_srcu().  A given
        synchronize_srcu() waits only for SRCU read-side critical
        sections governed by srcu_read_lock() and srcu_read_unlock()
        calls that have been passed the same srcu_struct.  This property
        is what makes sleeping read-side critical sections tolerable --
        a given subsystem delays only its own updates, not those of other
        subsystems using SRCU.  Therefore, SRCU is less prone to OOM the
        system than RCU would be if RCU's read-side critical sections
        were permitted to sleep.

        The ability to sleep in read-side critical sections does not
        come for free.  First, corresponding srcu_read_lock() and
        srcu_read_unlock() calls must be passed the same srcu_struct.
        Second, grace-period-detection overhead is amortized only
        over those updates sharing a given srcu_struct, rather than
        being globally amortized as they are for other forms of RCU.
        Therefore, SRCU should be used in preference to rw_semaphore
        only in extremely read-intensive situations, or in situations
        requiring SRCU's read-side deadlock immunity or low read-side
        realtime latency.  You should also consider percpu_rw_semaphore
        when you need lightweight readers.

        SRCU's expedited primitive (synchronize_srcu_expedited())
        never sends IPIs to other CPUs, so it is easier on
        real-time workloads than is synchronize_rcu_expedited().

        Note that rcu_assign_pointer() relates to SRCU just as it does to
        other forms of RCU, but instead of rcu_dereference() you should
        use srcu_dereference() in order to avoid lockdep splats.

14.     The whole point of call_rcu(), synchronize_rcu(), and friends
        is to wait until all pre-existing readers have finished before
        carrying out some otherwise-destructive operation.  It is
        therefore critically important to -first- remove any path
        that readers can follow that could be affected by the
        destructive operation, and -only- -then- invoke call_rcu(),
        synchronize_rcu(), or friends.

        Because these primitives only wait for pre-existing readers, it
        is the caller's responsibility to guarantee that any subsequent
        readers will execute safely.

15.     The various RCU read-side primitives do -not- necessarily contain
        memory barriers.  You should therefore plan for the CPU
        and the compiler to freely reorder code into and out of RCU
        read-side critical sections.  It is the responsibility of the
        RCU update-side primitives to deal with this.

        For SRCU readers, you can use smp_mb__after_srcu_read_unlock()
        immediately after an srcu_read_unlock() to get a full barrier.

16.     Use CONFIG_PROVE_LOCKING, CONFIG_DEBUG_OBJECTS_RCU_HEAD, and the
        __rcu sparse checks to validate your RCU code.  These can help
        find problems as follows:

        CONFIG_PROVE_LOCKING:
                check that accesses to RCU-protected data
                structures are carried out under the proper RCU
                read-side critical section, while holding the right
                combination of locks, or whatever other conditions
                are appropriate.

        CONFIG_DEBUG_OBJECTS_RCU_HEAD:
                check that you don't pass the
                same object to call_rcu() (or friends) before an RCU
                grace period has elapsed since the last time that you
                passed that same object to call_rcu() (or friends).

        __rcu sparse checks:
                tag the pointer to the RCU-protected data
                structure with __rcu, and sparse will warn you if you
                access that pointer without the services of one of the
                variants of rcu_dereference().

        These debugging aids can help you find problems that are
        otherwise extremely difficult to spot.

17.     If you register a callback using call_rcu() or call_srcu(), and
        pass in a function defined within a loadable module, then it in
        necessary to wait for all pending callbacks to be invoked after
        the last invocation and before unloading that module.  Note that
        it is absolutely -not- sufficient to wait for a grace period!
        The current (say) synchronize_rcu() implementation is -not-
        guaranteed to wait for callbacks registered on other CPUs.
        Or even on the current CPU if that CPU recently went offline
        and came back online.

        You instead need to use one of the barrier functions:

        -       call_rcu() -> rcu_barrier()
        -       call_srcu() -> srcu_barrier()

        However, these barrier functions are absolutely -not- guaranteed
        to wait for a grace period.  In fact, if there are no call_rcu()
        callbacks waiting anywhere in the system, rcu_barrier() is within
        its rights to return immediately.

        So if you need to wait for both an RCU grace period and for
        all pre-existing call_rcu() callbacks, you will need to execute
        both rcu_barrier() and synchronize_rcu(), if necessary, using
        something like workqueues to to execute them concurrently.

        See rcubarrier.txt for more information.