Hello, Sorry about the delay. Have been and still am traveling. On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 09:54:20AM +0200, Michal Hocko wrote: > > > On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 03:04:06PM +0800, Li Zefan wrote: > > >> + /* > > >> + * Releases a reference taken in kmem_cgroup_css_offline in case > > >> + * this last uncharge is racing with the offlining code or it is > > >> + * outliving the memcg existence. > > >> + * > > >> + * The memory barrier imposed by test&clear is paired with the > > >> + * explicit one in kmem_cgroup_css_offline. > > > > > > Paired with the wmb to achieve what? > > https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/4/4/190 > " > ! > + css_get(&memcg->css); > ! I think that you need a write memory barrier here because css_get > ! nor memcg_kmem_mark_dead implies it. memcg_uncharge_kmem uses > ! memcg_kmem_test_and_clear_dead which imply a full memory barrier but it > ! should see the elevated reference count. No? > ! > ! > + /* > ! > + * We need to call css_get() first, because memcg_uncharge_kmem() > ! > + * will call css_put() if it sees the memcg is dead. > ! > + */ > ! > memcg_kmem_mark_dead(memcg); > " > > Does it make sense to you Tejun? Yeah, you're right. We need them. It's still a bummer that mark_dead has the appearance of proper encapsulation while not really taking care of synchronization. I think it'd make more sense for mark_dead to have the barrier (which BTW should probably be smp_wmb() instead of wmb()) inside it or for the function to be just open-coded. More on this topic later. > > The comment is wrong. I'll fix it. > > Ohh, right. "Althouth this might sound strange as this path is called from > css_offline when the reference might have dropped down to 0 and shouldn't ..." > > Sounds better? Yeap. > > I don't quite like adding a lock not to protect data but just ensure code > > orders. > > Agreed. > > > Michal, what's your preference? I want to be sure that everyone is happy > > so the next version will hopefully be the last version. > > I still do not see why the barrier is not needed and the lock seems too > big hammer. Yes, the barrier is necessary but I still think it's unnecessarily elaborate. Among the locking constructs, the barriesr are the worst - they don't enforce any structures, people often misunderstand / make mistakes about them, bugs from misusages are extremely difficult to trigger and reproduce especially on x86. It's a horrible construct and should only be used if no other options can meet the performance requirements required for the path. So, to me, "lock is too big a hammer" looks to be approaching the problem from the completely wrong direction when the code path clearly isn't hot enough to justify memory barrier tricks. We don't and shouldn't try to choose the mechanism with the lowest possible overhead for the given situation. We should be as simple and straight-forward as the situation allows. That's the only way to sustain long-term maintainability. So, let's please do something which is apparent. I don't really care what it is - a shared spinlock, test_and_lock bitops, whatever. It's not gonna show up in any profile anyway. There's absolutely no reason to mess with memory barriers. Thanks. -- tejun -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@xxxxxxxxx";> email@xxxxxxxxx </a>