xref: /freebsd/share/man/man9/rmlock.9 (revision 2be1a816b9ff69588e55be0a84cbe2a31efc0f2f)
1.\" Copyright (c) 2007 Stephan Uphoff <ups@FreeBSD.org>
2.\" Copyright (c) 2006 Gleb Smirnoff <glebius@FreeBSD.org>
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26.\" $FreeBSD$
27.\"
28.\" Based on rwlock.9 man page
29.Dd November 10, 2007
30.Dt RMLOCK 9
31.Os
32.Sh NAME
33.Nm rmlock ,
34.Nm rm_init ,
35.Nm rm_destroy ,
36.Nm rm_rlock ,
37.Nm rm_wlock ,
38.Nm rm_runlock ,
39.Nm rm_wunlock ,
40.Nm rm_wowned ,
41.Nm RM_SYSINIT
42.Nd kernel reader/writer lock optimized for mostly read access patterns
43.Sh SYNOPSIS
44.In sys/param.h
45.In sys/lock.h
46.In sys/rmlock.h
47.Ft void
48.Fn rm_init "struct rmlock *rm" "const char *name" "int opts"
49.Ft void
50.Fn rm_destroy "struct rmlock *rm"
51.Ft void
52.Fn rm_rlock "struct rmlock *rm"  "struct rm_priotracker* tracker"
53.Ft void
54.Fn rm_wlock "struct rmlock *rm"
55.Ft void
56.Fn rm_runlock "struct rmlock *rm" "struct rm_priotracker* tracker"
57.Ft void
58.Fn rm_wunlock "struct rmlock *rm"
59.Ft int
60.Fn rm_wowned "struct rmlock *rm"
61.In sys/kernel.h
62.Fn RM_SYSINIT "name" "struct rmlock *rm" "const char *desc" "int opts"
63.Sh DESCRIPTION
64Mostly reader locks allow shared access to protected data by multiple threads,
65or exclusive access by a single thread.
66The threads with shared access are known as
67.Em readers
68since they only read the protected data.
69A thread with exclusive access is known as a
70.Em writer
71since it can modify protected data.
72.Pp
73Read mostly locks are designed to be efficient for locks almost exclusively
74used as reader locks and as such should be used for protecting data that
75rarely changes.
76Acquiring an exclusive lock after the lock had been locked for shared access
77is an expensive operation.
78.Pp
79Although reader/writer locks look very similar to
80.Xr sx 9
81locks, their usage pattern is different.
82Reader/writer locks can be treated as mutexes (see
83.Xr mutex 9 )
84with shared/exclusive semantics.
85Unlike
86.Xr sx 9 ,
87an
88.Nm
89can be locked while holding a non-spin mutex, and an
90.Nm
91cannot be held while sleeping.
92The
93.Nm
94locks have full priority propagation like mutexes.
95The
96.Va rm_priotracker
97structure argument supplied in
98.Fn rm_rlock
99and
100.Fn rm_runlock
101is used to keep track of the read owner(s).
102Another important property is that shared holders of
103.Nm
104can recurse if the lock has been initialized with the
105.Dv LO_RECURSABLE
106option, however exclusive locks are not allowed to recurse.
107.Ss Macros and Functions
108.Bl -tag -width indent
109.It Fn rm_init "struct rmlock *rm" "const char *name" "int opts"
110Initialize structure located at
111.Fa rm
112as mostly reader lock, described by
113.Fa name .
114Optionally allowing readers to recurse by setting
115.Dv LO_RECURSABLE
116in
117.Fa opts .
118The name description is used solely for debugging purposes.
119This function must be called before any other operations
120on the lock.
121.It Fn rm_rlock "struct rmlock *rm" "struct rm_priotracker* tracker"
122Lock
123.Fa rm
124as a reader.
125Using
126.Fa tracker
127to track read owners of a lock for priority propagation.
128This data structure is only used internally by
129.Nm
130and must persist until
131.Fn rm_runlock
132has been called.
133This data structure can be allocated on the stack since
134rmlocks cannot be held while sleeping.
135If any thread holds this lock exclusively, the current thread blocks,
136and its priority is propagated to the exclusive holder.
137If the lock was initialized with the
138.Dv LO_RECURSABLE
139option the
140.Fn rm_rlock
141function can be called when the thread has already acquired reader
142access on
143.Fa rm .
144This is called
145.Dq "recursing on a lock" .
146.It Fn rm_wlock "struct rmlock *rm"
147Lock
148.Fa rm
149as a writer.
150If there are any shared owners of the lock, the current thread blocks.
151The
152.Fn rm_wlock
153function cannot be called recursively.
154.It Fn rm_runlock "struct rmlock *rm" "struct rm_priotracker* tracker"
155This function releases a shared lock previously acquired by
156.Fn rm_rlock .
157The
158.Fa tracker
159argument must match the
160.Fa tracker
161argument used for acquiring the shared lock
162.It Fn rm_wunlock "struct rmlock *rm"
163This function releases an exclusive lock previously acquired by
164.Fn rm_wlock .
165.It Fn rm_destroy "struct rmlock *rm"
166This functions destroys a lock previously initialized with
167.Fn rm_init .
168The
169.Fa rm
170lock must be unlocked.
171.It Fn rm_wowned "struct rmlock *rm"
172This function returns a non-zero value if the current thread owns an
173exclusive lock on
174.Fa rm .
175.El
176.Sh SEE ALSO
177.Xr locking 9 ,
178.Xr mutex 9 ,
179.Xr panic 9 ,
180.Xr rwlock 9 ,
181.Xr sema 9 ,
182.Xr sx 9
183.Sh HISTORY
184These
185functions appeared in
186.Fx 7.0 .
187.Sh AUTHORS
188.An -nosplit
189The
190.Nm
191facility was written by
192.An "Stephan Uphoff" .
193This manual page was written by
194.An "Gleb Smirnoff"
195for rwlock and modified to reflect rmlock by
196.An "Stephan Uphoff" .
197.Sh BUGS
198The
199.Nm
200implementation is currently not optimized for single processor systems.
201.Pp
202The
203.Nm
204implementation uses a single per CPU list shared by all
205rmlocks in the system.
206If rmlocks become popular, hashing to multiple per CPU queues may
207be needed to speed up the writer lock process.
208.Pp
209The
210.Nm
211can currently not be used as a lock argument for condition variable
212wait functions.
213