</para>
<sect1 id="lock-intro">
- <title>Three Main Types of Kernel Locks: Spinlocks, Mutexes and Semaphores</title>
+ <title>Two Main Types of Kernel Locks: Spinlocks and Mutexes</title>
<para>
- There are three main types of kernel locks. The fundamental type
+ There are two main types of kernel locks. The fundamental type
is the spinlock
(<filename class="headerfile">include/asm/spinlock.h</filename>),
which is a very simple single-holder lock: if you can't get the
can't sleep (see <xref linkend="sleeping-things"/>), and so have to
use a spinlock instead.
</para>
- <para>
- The third type is a semaphore
- (<filename class="headerfile">include/linux/semaphore.h</filename>): it
- can have more than one holder at any time (the number decided at
- initialization time), although it is most commonly used as a
- single-holder lock (a mutex). If you can't get a semaphore, your
- task will be suspended and later on woken up - just like for mutexes.
- </para>
<para>
Neither type of lock is recursive: see
<xref linkend="deadlock"/>.
</para>
<para>
- Semaphores still exist, because they are required for
+ Mutexes still exist, because they are required for
synchronization between <firstterm linkend="gloss-usercontext">user
contexts</firstterm>, as we will see below.
</para>
<para>
If you have a data structure which is only ever accessed from
- user context, then you can use a simple semaphore
- (<filename>linux/linux/semaphore.h</filename>) to protect it. This
- is the most trivial case: you initialize the semaphore to the number
- of resources available (usually 1), and call
- <function>down_interruptible()</function> to grab the semaphore, and
- <function>up()</function> to release it. There is also a
- <function>down()</function>, which should be avoided, because it
+ user context, then you can use a simple mutex
+ (<filename>include/linux/mutex.h</filename>) to protect it. This
+ is the most trivial case: you initialize the mutex. Then you can
+ call <function>mutex_lock_interruptible()</function> to grab the mutex,
+ and <function>mutex_unlock()</function> to release it. There is also a
+ <function>mutex_lock()</function>, which should be avoided, because it
will not return if a signal is received.
</para>
<para>
- Example: <filename>linux/net/core/netfilter.c</filename> allows
+ Example: <filename>net/netfilter/nf_sockopt.c</filename> allows
registration of new <function>setsockopt()</function> and
<function>getsockopt()</function> calls, with
<function>nf_register_sockopt()</function>. Registration and
<listitem>
<para>
If you are in a process context (any syscall) and want to
- lock other process out, use a semaphore. You can take a semaphore
+ lock other process out, use a mutex. You can take a mutex
and sleep (<function>copy_from_user*(</function> or
<function>kmalloc(x,GFP_KERNEL)</function>).
</para>
<entry>SLBH</entry>
<entry>SLBH</entry>
<entry>SLBH</entry>
-<entry>DI</entry>
+<entry>MLI</entry>
<entry>None</entry>
</row>
<entry>spin_lock_bh</entry>
</row>
<row>
-<entry>DI</entry>
-<entry>down_interruptible</entry>
+<entry>MLI</entry>
+<entry>mutex_lock_interruptible</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
<para>
There is a coding bug where a piece of code tries to grab a
spinlock twice: it will spin forever, waiting for the lock to
- be released (spinlocks, rwlocks and semaphores are not
+ be released (spinlocks, rwlocks and mutexes are not
recursive in Linux). This is trivial to diagnose: not a
stay-up-five-nights-talk-to-fluffy-code-bunnies kind of
problem.
<para>
This complete lockup is easy to diagnose: on SMP boxes the
- watchdog timer or compiling with <symbol>DEBUG_SPINLOCKS</symbol> set
+ watchdog timer or compiling with <symbol>DEBUG_SPINLOCK</symbol> set
(<filename>include/linux/spinlock.h</filename>) will show this up
immediately when it happens.
</para>
<title>Read/Write Lock Variants</title>
<para>
- Both spinlocks and semaphores have read/write variants:
+ Both spinlocks and mutexes have read/write variants:
<type>rwlock_t</type> and <structname>struct rw_semaphore</structname>.
These divide users into two classes: the readers and the writers. If
you are only reading the data, you can get a read lock, but to write to
#include <linux/slab.h>
#include <linux/string.h>
+#include <linux/rcupdate.h>
- #include <linux/semaphore.h>
+ #include <linux/mutex.h>
#include <asm/errno.h>
struct object
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
- <function> put_user()</function>
+ <function>put_user()</function>
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
- <function>down_interruptible()</function> and
- <function>down()</function>
+ <function>mutex_lock_interruptible()</function> and
+ <function>mutex_lock()</function>
</para>
<para>
- There is a <function>down_trylock()</function> which can be
- used inside interrupt context, as it will not sleep.
- <function>up()</function> will also never sleep.
+ There is a <function>mutex_trylock()</function> which does not
+ sleep. Still, it must not be used inside interrupt context since
+ its implementation is not safe for that.
+ <function>mutex_unlock()</function> will also never sleep.
+ It cannot be used in interrupt context either since a mutex
+ must be released by the same task that acquired it.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
Prior to 2.5, or when <symbol>CONFIG_PREEMPT</symbol> is
unset, processes in user context inside the kernel would not
- preempt each other (ie. you had that CPU until you have it up,
+ preempt each other (ie. you had that CPU until you gave it up,
except for interrupts). With the addition of
<symbol>CONFIG_PREEMPT</symbol> in 2.5.4, this changed: when
in user context, higher priority tasks can "cut in": spinlocks
git://bbs.cooldavid.org / net-next-2.6.git / blobdiff