Re: [PATCH v2 22/32] s390: define __smp_xxx

On 01/05/2016 10:30 AM, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:

arch/s390/kernel/vdso.c:        smp_mb();

Looking at
	Author: Christian Borntraeger [off-list ref]
	Date:   Fri Sep 11 16:23:06 2015 +0200

	    s390/vdso: use correct memory barrier

	    By definition smp_wmb only orders writes against writes. (Finish all
	    previous writes, and do not start any future write). To protect the
	    vdso init code against early reads on other CPUs, let's use a full
	    smp_mb at the end of vdso init. As right now smp_wmb is implemented
	    as full serialization, this needs no stable backport, but this change
	    will be necessary if we reimplement smp_wmb.

ok from hypervisor point of view, but it's also strange:
1. why isn't this paired with another mb somewhere?
   this seems to violate barrier pairing rules.
2. how does smp_mb protect against early reads on other CPUs?
   It normally does not: it orders reads from this CPU versus writes
   from same CPU. But init code does not appear to read anything.
   Maybe this is some s390 specific trick?

I could not figure out the above commit.

It was probably me misreading the code. I change a wmb into a full mb here
since I was changing the defintion of wmb to a compiler barrier. I tried to
fixup all users of wmb that really pair with other code. I assumed that there
must be some reader (as there was a wmb before) but I could not figure out
which. So I just played safe here.

But it probably can be removed.

arch/s390/kvm/kvm-s390.c:       smp_mb();

This can go. If you have a patch, I can carry that via the kvms390 tree,
or I will spin a new patch with you as suggested-by.

Christian