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authorToke Høiland-Jørgensen <toke@redhat.com>2021-06-24 18:05:53 +0200
committerDaniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>2021-06-24 19:41:14 +0200
commite74c74f9e51deb725e72d129084ba8252d47222d (patch)
tree7d52ec628c6aa39a9123dd851a85479298bca25d /Documentation/RCU
parent9a145c04a293933002ec288a4d6b4f370b59e4d1 (diff)
downloadlinux-e74c74f9e51deb725e72d129084ba8252d47222d.tar.gz
doc: Give XDP as example of non-obvious RCU reader/updater pairing
This commit gives an example of non-obvious RCU reader/updater pairing
in the guise of the XDP feature in networking, which calls BPF programs
from network-driver NAPI (softirq) context.

Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Toke Høiland-Jørgensen <toke@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Daniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/20210624160609.292325-4-toke@redhat.com
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/RCU')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/RCU/checklist.rst11
1 files changed, 9 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/RCU/checklist.rst b/Documentation/RCU/checklist.rst
index 07f6cb8f674d..01cc21f17f7b 100644
--- a/Documentation/RCU/checklist.rst
+++ b/Documentation/RCU/checklist.rst
@@ -236,8 +236,15 @@ over a rather long period of time, but improvements are always welcome!
 
 	Mixing things up will result in confusion and broken kernels, and
 	has even resulted in an exploitable security issue.  Therefore,
-	when using non-obvious pairs of primitives, commenting is of
-	course a must.
+	when using non-obvious pairs of primitives, commenting is
+	of course a must.  One example of non-obvious pairing is
+	the XDP feature in networking, which calls BPF programs from
+	network-driver NAPI (softirq) context.	BPF relies heavily on RCU
+	protection for its data structures, but because the BPF program
+	invocation happens entirely within a single local_bh_disable()
+	section in a NAPI poll cycle, this usage is safe.  The reason
+	that this usage is safe is that readers can use anything that
+	disables BH when updaters use call_rcu() or synchronize_rcu().
 
 8.	Although synchronize_rcu() is slower than is call_rcu(), it
 	usually results in simpler code.  So, unless update performance is