locking(9)
- NetBSD Manual Pages
LOCKING(9) NetBSD Kernel Developer's Manual LOCKING(9)
NAME
locking -- introduction to kernel synchronization and interrupt control
DESCRIPTION
The NetBSD kernel provides several synchronization and interrupt control
primitives. This man page aims to give an overview of these interfaces
and their proper application. Also included are basic kernel thread con-
trol primitives and a rough overview of the NetBSD kernel design.
KERNEL OVERVIEW
The aim of synchronization, threads and interrupt control in the kernel
is:
· To control concurrent access to shared resources (critical sec-
tions).
· Spawn tasks from an interrupt in the thread context.
· Mask interrupts from threads.
· Scale on multiple CPU system.
There are three types of contexts in the NetBSD kernel:
· Thread context - running processes (represented by struct proc)
and light-weight processes (represented by struct lwp, also
known as kernel threads). Code in this context can sleep,
block resources and own address-space.
· Software interrupt context - limited by thread context. Code
in this context must be processed shortly. These interrupts
don't own any address space context. Software interrupts are a
way of deferring hardware interrupts to do more expensive pro-
cessing at a lower interrupt priority.
· Hard interrupt context - Code in this context must be processed
as quickly as possible. It is forbidden for a piece of code to
sleep or access long-awaited resources here.
The main differences between processes and kernel threads are:
· A single process can own multiple kernel threads (LWPs).
· A process owns address space context to map userland address
space.
· Processes are designed for userland executables and kernel
threads for in-kernel tasks. The only process running in the
kernel-space is proc0 (called swapper).
INTERFACES
Atomic memory operations
The atomic_ops family of functions provide atomic memory operations.
There are 7 classes of atomic memory operations available: addition, log-
ical ``and'', compare-and-swap, decrement, increment, logical ``or'',
swap.
See atomic_ops(3).
Condition variables
Condition variables (CVs) are used in the kernel to synchronize access to
resources that are limited (for example, memory) and to wait for pending
I/O operations to complete.
See condvar(9).
Memory access barrier operations
The membar_ops family of functions provide memory access barrier opera-
tions necessary for synchronization in multiprocessor execution environ-
ments that have relaxed load and store order.
See membar_ops(3).
Memory barriers
The memory barriers can be used to control the order in which memory
accesses occur, and thus the order in which those accesses become visible
to other processors. They can be used to implement ``lockless'' access
to data structures where the necessary barrier conditions are well under-
stood.
Mutual exclusion primitives
Thread-base adaptive mutexes. These are lightweight, exclusive locks
that use threads as the focus of synchronization activity. Adaptive
mutexes typically behave like spinlocks, but under specific conditions an
attempt to acquire an already held adaptive mutex may cause the acquiring
thread to sleep. Sleep activity occurs rarely. Busy-waiting is typi-
cally more efficient because mutex hold times are most often short. In
contrast to pure spinlocks, a thread holding an adaptive mutex may be
pre-empted in the kernel, which can allow for reduced latency where soft
real-time application are in use on the system.
See mutex(9).
Restartable atomic sequences
Restartable atomic sequences are user code only sequences which are guar-
anteed to execute without preemption. This property is assured by check-
ing the set of restartable atomic sequences registered for a process dur-
ing cpu_switchto(9). If a process is found to have been preempted during
a restartable sequence, then its execution is rolled-back to the start of
the sequence by resetting its program counter which is saved in its
process control block (PCB).
See ras(9).
Reader / writer lock primitives
Reader / writer locks (RW locks) are used in the kernel to synchronize
access to an object among LWPs (lightweight processes) and soft interrupt
handlers. In addition to the capabilities provided by mutexes, RW locks
distinguish between read (shared) and write (exclusive) access.
See rwlock(9).
Functions to modify system interrupt priority level
These functions raise and lower the interrupt priority level. They are
used by kernel code to block interrupts in critical sections, in order to
protect data structures.
See spl(9).
Machine-independent software interrupt framework
The software interrupt framework is designed to provide a generic soft-
ware interrupt mechanism which can be used any time a low-priority call-
back is required. It allows dynamic registration of software interrupts
for loadable drivers, protocol stacks, software interrupt prioritization,
software interrupt fair queuing and allows machine-dependent optimiza-
tions to reduce cost.
See softint(9).
Functions to raise the system priority level
The splraiseipl function raises the system priority level to the level
specified by icookie, which should be a value returned by
makeiplcookie(9). In general, device drivers should not make use of this
interface. To ensure correct synchronization, device drivers should use
the condvar(9), mutex(9), and rwlock(9) interfaces.
See splraiseipl(9).
Passive serialization mechanism
Passive serialization is a reader / writer synchronization mechanism
designed for lock-less read operations. The read operations may happen
from software interrupt at IPL_SOFTCLOCK.
See pserialize(9).
Passive reference mechanism
Passive references allow CPUs to cheaply acquire and release passive ref-
erences to a resource, which guarantee the resource will not be destroyed
until the reference is released. Acquiring and releasing passive refer-
ences requires no interprocessor synchronization, except when the
resource is pending destruction.
See psref(9).
Localcount mechanism
Localcounts are used in the kernel to implement a medium-weight reference
counting mechanism. During normal operations, localcounts do not need
the interprocessor synchronization associated with atomic_ops(3) atomic
memory operations, and (unlike psref(9)) localcount references can be
held across sleeps and can migrate between CPUs. Draining a localcount
requires more expensive interprocessor synchronization than atomic_ops(3)
(similar to psref(9)). And localcount references require eight bytes of
memory per object per-CPU, significantly more than atomic_ops(3) and
almost always more than psref(9).
See localcount(9).
Simple do-it-in-thread-context framework
The workqueue utility routines are provided to defer work which is needed
to be processed in a thread context.
See workqueue(9).
USAGE
The following table describes in which contexts the use of the NetBSD
kernel interfaces are valid. Synchronization primitives which are avail-
able in more than one context can be used to protect shared resources
between the contexts they overlap.
interface thread softirq hardirq
atomic_ops(3) yes yes yes
condvar(9) yes partly no
membar_ops(3) yes yes yes
mutex(9) yes depends depends
rwlock(9) yes yes no
softint(9) yes yes yes
spl(9) yes no no
splraiseipl(9) yes no no
pserialize(9) yes yes no
psref(9) yes yes no
localcount(9) yes yes no
workqueue(9) yes yes yes
SEE ALSO
atomic_ops(3), membar_ops(3), condvar(9), mutex(9), ras(9), rwlock(9),
softint(9), spl(9), splraiseipl(9), workqueue(9)
HISTORY
Initial SMP support was introduced in NetBSD 2.0 and was designed with a
giant kernel lock. Through NetBSD 4.0, the kernel used spinlocks and a
per-CPU interrupt priority level (the spl(9) system). These mechanisms
did not lend themselves well to a multiprocessor environment supporting
kernel preemption. The use of thread based (lock) synchronization was
limited and the available synchronization primitive (lockmgr) was ineffi-
cient and slow to execute. NetBSD 5.0 introduced massive performance
improvements on multicore hardware by Andrew Doran. This work was spon-
sored by The NetBSD Foundation.
A locking manual first appeared in NetBSD 8.0 and was inspired by the
corresponding locking manuals in FreeBSD and DragonFly.
AUTHORS
Kamil Rytarowski <kamil@NetBSD.org>.
NetBSD 10.99 August 23, 2017 NetBSD 10.99
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