On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 12:27 PM, priyaranjan <priyaranjan45678@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi All,

I was referring to "Unreliable Guide To Locking by Paul Rusty Russell".

Here is a quote below :-

"If a bottom half shares data with user context, you have two problems. Firstly, the current user context can be interrupted by a bottom half, and secondly, the critical region could be entered from another CPU. This is where spin_lock_bh() (include/linux/spinlock.h) is used. It disables bottom halves on that CPU, then grabs the lock. spin_unlock_bh() does the reverse"

Note : -

"user context" here means : The kernel executing on behalf of a particular process or kernel thread (given by the current() macro.) Not to be confused with userspace. Can be interrupted by software or hardware interrupts.

I have below questions related to the same.

1. If the BH is a tasklet/workque and in the user context we disable it, what happens when a interrupt(tied to the same tasklet/workque) occurs ? I hope the spin_lock_bh() do not disable the interrupt.

It doesn't afaik.

2. I hope that the spin_lock_bh needs to be acquired by the user context. Can anybody confirm this? How the critical section is achieved from the BH in the same context?

spin_lock_bh will disable softirqs on current core. Just like irq versions of spin_lock. It's required since if the user space got just the spin_lock then in case the softirq is triggered on the same core due to interrupt then it's locked up. You can protect the same with spin_lock_irq but that's too conservative since you know you don't need interrupts disabled. When you do spin_lock_bh from task_struct context then your tasklet's won't be scheduled on current core since softirqs are disabled, thereby giving you the safe passage in case the the tasklet was scheduled on other core.

3.Overall It would be great if anybody can help me understand what happens when a BH is disabled with Interrupts still enabled for the BH.

yes they are enabled.

Regards, Priyaranjan

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