preempt_disable() and local_irq_disable/save() are in principle per CPU big
kernel locks. This has several downsides:
- The protection scope is unknown
- Violation of protection rules is hard to detect by instrumentation
- For PREEMPT_RT such sections, unless in low level critical code, can
violate the preemptability constraints.
To address this PREEMPT_RT introduced the concept of local_locks which are
strictly per CPU.
The lock operations map to preempt_disable(), local_irq_disable/save() and
the enabling counterparts on non RT enabled kernels.
If lockdep is enabled local locks gain a lock map which tracks the usage
context. This will catch cases where an area is protected by
preempt_disable() but the access also happens from interrupt context. local
locks have identified quite a few such issues over the years, the most
recent example is:
b7d5dc2107 ("random: add a spinlock_t to struct batched_entropy")
Aside of the lockdep coverage this also improves code readability as it
precisely annotates the protection scope.
PREEMPT_RT substitutes these local locks with 'sleeping' spinlocks to
protect such sections while maintaining preemtability and CPU locality.
local locks can replace:
- preempt_enable()/disable() pairs
- local_irq_disable/enable() pairs
- local_irq_save/restore() pairs
They are also used to replace code which implicitly disables preemption
like:
- get_cpu()/put_cpu()
- get_cpu_var()/put_cpu_var()
with PREEMPT_RT friendly constructs.
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <bigeasy@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20200527201119.1692513-2-bigeasy@linutronix.de
Thomas Gleixner