Commit 984f272b authored by Paul E. McKenney's avatar Paul E. McKenney

tools/memory-model: Improve litmus-test documentation

The current LKMM documentation says very little about litmus tests, and
worse yet directs people to the herd7 documentation for more information.
Now, the herd7 documentation is quite voluminous and educational,
but it is intended for people creating and modifying memory models,
not those attempting to use them.

This commit therefore updates README and creates a litmus-tests.txt
file that gives an overview of litmus-test format and describes ways of
modeling various special cases, illustrated with numerous examples.

[ paulmck: Add Alan Stern feedback. ]
[ paulmck: Apply Dave Chinner feedback. ]
[ paulmck: Apply Andrii Nakryiko feedback. ]
[ paulmck: Apply Johannes Weiner feedback. ]
Link: https://lwn.net/Articles/827180/Reported-by: default avatarDave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>
Acked-by: default avatarPeter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarPaul E. McKenney <paulmck@kernel.org>
parent cc9628b4
This diff is collapsed.
......@@ -63,10 +63,32 @@ BASIC USAGE: HERD7
==================
The memory model is used, in conjunction with "herd7", to exhaustively
explore the state space of small litmus tests.
explore the state space of small litmus tests. Documentation describing
the format, features, capabilities and limitations of these litmus
tests is available in tools/memory-model/Documentation/litmus-tests.txt.
For example, to run SB+fencembonceonces.litmus against the memory model:
Example litmus tests may be found in the Linux-kernel source tree:
tools/memory-model/litmus-tests/
Documentation/litmus-tests/
Several thousand more example litmus tests are available here:
https://github.com/paulmckrcu/litmus
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/paulmck/perfbook.git/tree/CodeSamples/formal/herd
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/paulmck/perfbook.git/tree/CodeSamples/formal/litmus
Documentation describing litmus tests and now to use them may be found
here:
tools/memory-model/Documentation/litmus-tests.txt
The remainder of this section uses the SB+fencembonceonces.litmus test
located in the tools/memory-model directory.
To run SB+fencembonceonces.litmus against the memory model:
$ cd $LINUX_SOURCE_TREE/tools/memory-model
$ herd7 -conf linux-kernel.cfg litmus-tests/SB+fencembonceonces.litmus
Here is the corresponding output:
......@@ -87,7 +109,11 @@ Here is the corresponding output:
The "Positive: 0 Negative: 3" and the "Never 0 3" each indicate that
this litmus test's "exists" clause can not be satisfied.
See "herd7 -help" or "herdtools7/doc/" for more information.
See "herd7 -help" or "herdtools7/doc/" for more information on running the
tool itself, but please be aware that this documentation is intended for
people who work on the memory model itself, that is, people making changes
to the tools/memory-model/linux-kernel.* files. It is not intended for
people focusing on writing, understanding, and running LKMM litmus tests.
=====================
......@@ -124,7 +150,11 @@ that during two million trials, the state specified in this litmus
test's "exists" clause was not reached.
And, as with "herd7", please see "klitmus7 -help" or "herdtools7/doc/"
for more information.
for more information. And again, please be aware that this documentation
is intended for people who work on the memory model itself, that is,
people making changes to the tools/memory-model/linux-kernel.* files.
It is not intended for people focusing on writing, understanding, and
running LKMM litmus tests.
====================
......@@ -137,6 +167,10 @@ Documentation/cheatsheet.txt
Documentation/explanation.txt
Describes the memory model in detail.
Documentation/litmus-tests.txt
Describes the format, features, capabilities, and limitations
of the litmus tests that LKMM can evaluate.
Documentation/recipes.txt
Lists common memory-ordering patterns.
......@@ -187,116 +221,3 @@ README
This file.
scripts Various scripts, see scripts/README.
===========
LIMITATIONS
===========
The Linux-kernel memory model (LKMM) has the following limitations:
1. Compiler optimizations are not accurately modeled. Of course,
the use of READ_ONCE() and WRITE_ONCE() limits the compiler's
ability to optimize, but under some circumstances it is possible
for the compiler to undermine the memory model. For more
information, see Documentation/explanation.txt (in particular,
the "THE PROGRAM ORDER RELATION: po AND po-loc" and "A WARNING"
sections).
Note that this limitation in turn limits LKMM's ability to
accurately model address, control, and data dependencies.
For example, if the compiler can deduce the value of some variable
carrying a dependency, then the compiler can break that dependency
by substituting a constant of that value.
2. Multiple access sizes for a single variable are not supported,
and neither are misaligned or partially overlapping accesses.
3. Exceptions and interrupts are not modeled. In some cases,
this limitation can be overcome by modeling the interrupt or
exception with an additional process.
4. I/O such as MMIO or DMA is not supported.
5. Self-modifying code (such as that found in the kernel's
alternatives mechanism, function tracer, Berkeley Packet Filter
JIT compiler, and module loader) is not supported.
6. Complete modeling of all variants of atomic read-modify-write
operations, locking primitives, and RCU is not provided.
For example, call_rcu() and rcu_barrier() are not supported.
However, a substantial amount of support is provided for these
operations, as shown in the linux-kernel.def file.
a. When rcu_assign_pointer() is passed NULL, the Linux
kernel provides no ordering, but LKMM models this
case as a store release.
b. The "unless" RMW operations are not currently modeled:
atomic_long_add_unless(), atomic_inc_unless_negative(),
and atomic_dec_unless_positive(). These can be emulated
in litmus tests, for example, by using atomic_cmpxchg().
One exception of this limitation is atomic_add_unless(),
which is provided directly by herd7 (so no corresponding
definition in linux-kernel.def). atomic_add_unless() is
modeled by herd7 therefore it can be used in litmus tests.
c. The call_rcu() function is not modeled. It can be
emulated in litmus tests by adding another process that
invokes synchronize_rcu() and the body of the callback
function, with (for example) a release-acquire from
the site of the emulated call_rcu() to the beginning
of the additional process.
d. The rcu_barrier() function is not modeled. It can be
emulated in litmus tests emulating call_rcu() via
(for example) a release-acquire from the end of each
additional call_rcu() process to the site of the
emulated rcu-barrier().
e. Although sleepable RCU (SRCU) is now modeled, there
are some subtle differences between its semantics and
those in the Linux kernel. For example, the kernel
might interpret the following sequence as two partially
overlapping SRCU read-side critical sections:
1 r1 = srcu_read_lock(&my_srcu);
2 do_something_1();
3 r2 = srcu_read_lock(&my_srcu);
4 do_something_2();
5 srcu_read_unlock(&my_srcu, r1);
6 do_something_3();
7 srcu_read_unlock(&my_srcu, r2);
In contrast, LKMM will interpret this as a nested pair of
SRCU read-side critical sections, with the outer critical
section spanning lines 1-7 and the inner critical section
spanning lines 3-5.
This difference would be more of a concern had anyone
identified a reasonable use case for partially overlapping
SRCU read-side critical sections. For more information,
please see: https://paulmck.livejournal.com/40593.html
f. Reader-writer locking is not modeled. It can be
emulated in litmus tests using atomic read-modify-write
operations.
The "herd7" tool has some additional limitations of its own, apart from
the memory model:
1. Non-trivial data structures such as arrays or structures are
not supported. However, pointers are supported, allowing trivial
linked lists to be constructed.
2. Dynamic memory allocation is not supported, although this can
be worked around in some cases by supplying multiple statically
allocated variables.
Some of these limitations may be overcome in the future, but others are
more likely to be addressed by incorporating the Linux-kernel memory model
into other tools.
Finally, please note that LKMM is subject to change as hardware, use cases,
and compilers evolve.
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