Is writer starvation a potential problem with RCU?

Jeff Haran Jeff.Haran at citrix.com
Fri Feb 6 13:19:03 EST 2015


I've read that the Linux implementation of read-write locks (rwlock_t) can suffer from so called "writer starvation", whereby threads that take a read lock on a read-write lock can prevent threads attempting to take a write lock on the same read-write lock from ever acquiring the lock because there is no queuing of the readers and writers. If the lock is held for read access, any subsequent reader will get the lock even if a write lock attempt is already in progress.

Does anybody happen to know whether or not RCU has a similar issue?

Thanks,

Jeff Haran




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