[tip:core/rcu] documentation: Fix some inconsistencies in RTFP.txt

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



Commit-ID:  e4696a1d3b1125d427de685531a44258ea6263df
Gitweb:     http://git.kernel.org/tip/e4696a1d3b1125d427de685531a44258ea6263df
Author:     Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
AuthorDate: Sat, 15 Feb 2014 08:52:32 -0800
Committer:  Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
CommitDate: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 14:56:10 -0800

documentation: Fix some inconsistencies in RTFP.txt

Some of the early history leaves out some citations and vice versa.  This
commit fixes these up.

Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reviewed-by: Josh Triplett <josh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
 Documentation/RCU/RTFP.txt | 149 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------
 1 file changed, 125 insertions(+), 24 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/RCU/RTFP.txt b/Documentation/RCU/RTFP.txt
index 273e654d..2f0fcb2 100644
--- a/Documentation/RCU/RTFP.txt
+++ b/Documentation/RCU/RTFP.txt
@@ -31,6 +31,14 @@ has lapsed, so this approach may be used in non-GPL software, if desired.
 (In contrast, implementation of RCU is permitted only in software licensed
 under either GPL or LGPL.  Sorry!!!)
 
+In 1987, Rashid et al. described lazy TLB-flush [RichardRashid87a].
+At first glance, this has nothing to do with RCU, but nevertheless
+this paper helped inspire the update-side batching used in the later
+RCU implementation in DYNIX/ptx.  In 1988, Barbara Liskov published
+a description of Argus that noted that use of out-of-date values can
+be tolerated in some situations.  Thus, this paper provides some early
+theoretical justification for use of stale data.
+
 In 1990, Pugh [Pugh90] noted that explicitly tracking which threads
 were reading a given data structure permitted deferred free to operate
 in the presence of non-terminating threads.  However, this explicit
@@ -41,11 +49,11 @@ providing a fine-grained locking design, however, it would be interesting
 to see how much of the performance advantage reported in 1990 remains
 today.
 
-At about this same time, Adams [Adams91] described ``chaotic relaxation'',
-where the normal barriers between successive iterations of convergent
-numerical algorithms are relaxed, so that iteration $n$ might use
-data from iteration $n-1$ or even $n-2$.  This introduces error,
-which typically slows convergence and thus increases the number of
+At about this same time, Andrews [Andrews91textbook] described ``chaotic
+relaxation'', where the normal barriers between successive iterations
+of convergent numerical algorithms are relaxed, so that iteration $n$
+might use data from iteration $n-1$ or even $n-2$.  This introduces
+error, which typically slows convergence and thus increases the number of
 iterations required.  However, this increase is sometimes more than made
 up for by a reduction in the number of expensive barrier operations,
 which are otherwise required to synchronize the threads at the end
@@ -55,7 +63,8 @@ is thus inapplicable to most data structures in operating-system kernels.
 
 In 1992, Henry (now Alexia) Massalin completed a dissertation advising
 parallel programmers to defer processing when feasible to simplify
-synchronization.  RCU makes extremely heavy use of this advice.
+synchronization [HMassalinPhD].  RCU makes extremely heavy use of
+this advice.
 
 In 1993, Jacobson [Jacobson93] verbally described what is perhaps the
 simplest deferred-free technique: simply waiting a fixed amount of time
@@ -90,27 +99,29 @@ mechanism, which is quite similar to RCU [Gamsa99].  These operating
 systems made pervasive use of RCU in place of "existence locks", which
 greatly simplifies locking hierarchies and helps avoid deadlocks.
 
-2001 saw the first RCU presentation involving Linux [McKenney01a]
-at OLS.  The resulting abundance of RCU patches was presented the
-following year [McKenney02a], and use of RCU in dcache was first
-described that same year [Linder02a].
+The year 2000 saw an email exchange that would likely have
+led to yet another independent invention of something like RCU
+[RustyRussell2000a,RustyRussell2000b].  Instead, 2001 saw the first
+RCU presentation involving Linux [McKenney01a] at OLS.  The resulting
+abundance of RCU patches was presented the following year [McKenney02a],
+and use of RCU in dcache was first described that same year [Linder02a].
 
 Also in 2002, Michael [Michael02b,Michael02a] presented "hazard-pointer"
 techniques that defer the destruction of data structures to simplify
 non-blocking synchronization (wait-free synchronization, lock-free
 synchronization, and obstruction-free synchronization are all examples of
-non-blocking synchronization).  In particular, this technique eliminates
-locking, reduces contention, reduces memory latency for readers, and
-parallelizes pipeline stalls and memory latency for writers.  However,
-these techniques still impose significant read-side overhead in the
-form of memory barriers.  Researchers at Sun worked along similar lines
-in the same timeframe [HerlihyLM02].  These techniques can be thought
-of as inside-out reference counts, where the count is represented by the
-number of hazard pointers referencing a given data structure rather than
-the more conventional counter field within the data structure itself.
-The key advantage of inside-out reference counts is that they can be
-stored in immortal variables, thus allowing races between access and
-deletion to be avoided.
+non-blocking synchronization).  The corresponding journal article appeared
+in 2004 [MagedMichael04a].  This technique eliminates locking, reduces
+contention, reduces memory latency for readers, and parallelizes pipeline
+stalls and memory latency for writers.  However, these techniques still
+impose significant read-side overhead in the form of memory barriers.
+Researchers at Sun worked along similar lines in the same timeframe
+[HerlihyLM02].  These techniques can be thought of as inside-out reference
+counts, where the count is represented by the number of hazard pointers
+referencing a given data structure rather than the more conventional
+counter field within the data structure itself.  The key advantage
+of inside-out reference counts is that they can be stored in immortal
+variables, thus allowing races between access and deletion to be avoided.
 
 By the same token, RCU can be thought of as a "bulk reference count",
 where some form of reference counter covers all reference by a given CPU
@@ -123,8 +134,10 @@ can be thought of in other terms as well.
 
 In 2003, the K42 group described how RCU could be used to create
 hot-pluggable implementations of operating-system functions [Appavoo03a].
-Later that year saw a paper describing an RCU implementation of System
-V IPC [Arcangeli03], and an introduction to RCU in Linux Journal
+Later that year saw a paper describing an RCU implementation
+of System V IPC [Arcangeli03] (following up on a suggestion by
+Hugh Dickins [Dickins02a] and an implementation by Mingming Cao
+[MingmingCao2002IPCRCU]), and an introduction to RCU in Linux Journal
 [McKenney03a].
 
 2004 has seen a Linux-Journal article on use of RCU in dcache
@@ -383,6 +396,21 @@ for Programming Languages and Operating Systems}"
 }
 }
 
+@phdthesis{HMassalinPhD
+,author="H. Massalin"
+,title="Synthesis: An Efficient Implementation of Fundamental Operating
+System Services"
+,school="Columbia University"
+,address="New York, NY"
+,year="1992"
+,annotation={
+	Mondo optimizing compiler.
+	Wait-free stuff.
+	Good advice: defer work to avoid synchronization.  See page 90
+		(PDF page 106), Section 5.4, fourth bullet point.
+}
+}
+
 @unpublished{Jacobson93
 ,author="Van Jacobson"
 ,title="Avoid Read-Side Locking Via Delayed Free"
@@ -671,6 +699,20 @@ Orran Krieger and Rusty Russell and Dipankar Sarma and Maneesh Soni"
 [Viewed October 18, 2004]"
 }
 
+@conference{Michael02b
+,author="Maged M. Michael"
+,title="High Performance Dynamic Lock-Free Hash Tables and List-Based Sets"
+,Year="2002"
+,Month="August"
+,booktitle="{Proceedings of the 14\textsuperscript{th} Annual ACM
+Symposium on Parallel
+Algorithms and Architecture}"
+,pages="73-82"
+,annotation={
+Like the title says...
+}
+}
+
 @Conference{Linder02a
 ,Author="Hanna Linder and Dipankar Sarma and Maneesh Soni"
 ,Title="Scalability of the Directory Entry Cache"
@@ -727,6 +769,24 @@ Andrea Arcangeli and Andi Kleen and Orran Krieger and Rusty Russell"
 }
 }
 
+@conference{Michael02a
+,author="Maged M. Michael"
+,title="Safe Memory Reclamation for Dynamic Lock-Free Objects Using Atomic
+Reads and Writes"
+,Year="2002"
+,Month="August"
+,booktitle="{Proceedings of the 21\textsuperscript{st} Annual ACM
+Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing}"
+,pages="21-30"
+,annotation={
+	Each thread keeps an array of pointers to items that it is
+	currently referencing.	Sort of an inside-out garbage collection
+	mechanism, but one that requires the accessing code to explicitly
+	state its needs.  Also requires read-side memory barriers on
+	most architectures.
+}
+}
+
 @unpublished{Dickins02a
 ,author="Hugh Dickins"
 ,title="Use RCU for System-V IPC"
@@ -735,6 +795,17 @@ Andrea Arcangeli and Andi Kleen and Orran Krieger and Rusty Russell"
 ,note="private communication"
 }
 
+@InProceedings{HerlihyLM02
+,author={Maurice Herlihy and Victor Luchangco and Mark Moir}
+,title="The Repeat Offender Problem: A Mechanism for Supporting Dynamic-Sized,
+Lock-Free Data Structures"
+,booktitle={Proceedings of 16\textsuperscript{th} International
+Symposium on Distributed Computing}
+,year=2002
+,month="October"
+,pages="339-353"
+}
+
 @unpublished{Sarma02b
 ,Author="Dipankar Sarma"
 ,Title="Some dcache\_rcu benchmark numbers"
@@ -749,6 +820,19 @@ Andrea Arcangeli and Andi Kleen and Orran Krieger and Rusty Russell"
 }
 }
 
+@unpublished{MingmingCao2002IPCRCU
+,Author="Mingming Cao"
+,Title="[PATCH]updated ipc lock patch"
+,month="October"
+,year="2002"
+,note="Available:
+\url{https://lkml.org/lkml/2002/10/24/262}
+[Viewed February 15, 2014]"
+,annotation={
+	Mingming Cao's patch to introduce RCU to SysV IPC.
+}
+}
+
 @unpublished{LinusTorvalds2003a
 ,Author="Linus Torvalds"
 ,Title="Re: {[PATCH]} small fixes in brlock.h"
@@ -982,6 +1066,23 @@ Realtime Applications"
 }
 }
 
+@article{MagedMichael04a
+,author="Maged M. Michael"
+,title="Hazard Pointers: Safe Memory Reclamation for Lock-Free Objects"
+,Year="2004"
+,Month="June"
+,journal="IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems"
+,volume="15"
+,number="6"
+,pages="491-504"
+,url="Available:
+\url{http://www.research.ibm.com/people/m/michael/ieeetpds-2004.pdf}
+[Viewed March 1, 2005]"
+,annotation={
+	New canonical hazard-pointer citation.
+}
+}
+
 @phdthesis{PaulEdwardMcKenneyPhD
 ,author="Paul E. McKenney"
 ,title="Exploiting Deferred Destruction:
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-tip-commits" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html




[Index of Archives]     [Linux Stable Commits]     [Linux Stable Kernel]     [Linux Kernel]     [Linux USB Devel]     [Linux Video &Media]     [Linux Audio Users]     [Yosemite News]     [Linux SCSI]

  Powered by Linux