xref: /freebsd/share/man/man9/rmlock.9 (revision 830940567b49bb0c08dfaed40418999e76616909)
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_init_flags ,
36.Nm rm_destroy ,
37.Nm rm_rlock ,
38.Nm rm_wlock ,
39.Nm rm_runlock ,
40.Nm rm_wunlock ,
41.Nm rm_wowned ,
42.Nm RM_SYSINIT
43.Nd kernel reader/writer lock optimized for mostly read access patterns
44.Sh SYNOPSIS
45.In sys/param.h
46.In sys/lock.h
47.In sys/rmlock.h
48.Ft void
49.Fn rm_init "struct rmlock *rm" "const char *name"
50.Ft void
51.Fn rm_init_flags "struct rmlock *rm" "const char *name" "int opts"
52.Ft void
53.Fn rm_destroy "struct rmlock *rm"
54.Ft void
55.Fn rm_rlock "struct rmlock *rm"  "struct rm_priotracker* tracker"
56.Ft void
57.Fn rm_wlock "struct rmlock *rm"
58.Ft void
59.Fn rm_runlock "struct rmlock *rm" "struct rm_priotracker* tracker"
60.Ft void
61.Fn rm_wunlock "struct rmlock *rm"
62.Ft int
63.Fn rm_wowned "struct rmlock *rm"
64.In sys/kernel.h
65.Fn RM_SYSINIT "name" "struct rmlock *rm" "const char *desc" "int opts"
66.Sh DESCRIPTION
67Mostly reader locks allow shared access to protected data by multiple threads,
68or exclusive access by a single thread.
69The threads with shared access are known as
70.Em readers
71since they only read the protected data.
72A thread with exclusive access is known as a
73.Em writer
74since it can modify protected data.
75.Pp
76Read mostly locks are designed to be efficient for locks almost exclusively
77used as reader locks and as such should be used for protecting data that
78rarely changes.
79Acquiring an exclusive lock after the lock had been locked for shared access
80is an expensive operation.
81.Pp
82Although reader/writer locks look very similar to
83.Xr sx 9
84locks, their usage pattern is different.
85Reader/writer locks can be treated as mutexes (see
86.Xr mutex 9 )
87with shared/exclusive semantics.
88Unlike
89.Xr sx 9 ,
90an
91.Nm
92can be locked while holding a non-spin mutex, and an
93.Nm
94cannot be held while sleeping.
95The
96.Nm
97locks have full priority propagation like mutexes.
98The
99.Va rm_priotracker
100structure argument supplied in
101.Fn rm_rlock
102and
103.Fn rm_runlock
104is used to keep track of the read owner(s).
105Another important property is that shared holders of
106.Nm
107can recurse if the lock has been initialized with the
108.Dv LO_RECURSABLE
109option, however exclusive locks are not allowed to recurse.
110.Ss Macros and Functions
111.Bl -tag -width indent
112.It Fn rm_init "struct rmlock *rm" "const char *name"
113Initialize structure located at
114.Fa rm
115as mostly reader lock, described by
116.Fa name .
117The name description is used solely for debugging purposes.
118This function must be called before any other operations
119on the lock.
120.It Fn rm_init_flags "struct rmlock *rm" "const char *name" "int opts"
121Initialize the rm lock just like the
122.Fn rm_init
123function, but specifying a set of optional flags to alter the
124behaviour of
125.Fa rm ,
126through the
127.Fa opts
128argument.
129It contains one or more of the following flags:
130.Bl -tag -width ".Dv RM_NOWITNESS"
131.It Dv RM_NOWITNESS
132Instruct
133.Xr witness 4
134to ignore this lock.
135.It Dv RM_RECURSE
136Allow threads to recursively acquire exclusive locks for
137.Fa rm .
138.El
139.It Fn rm_rlock "struct rmlock *rm" "struct rm_priotracker* tracker"
140Lock
141.Fa rm
142as a reader.
143Using
144.Fa tracker
145to track read owners of a lock for priority propagation.
146This data structure is only used internally by
147.Nm
148and must persist until
149.Fn rm_runlock
150has been called.
151This data structure can be allocated on the stack since
152rmlocks cannot be held while sleeping.
153If any thread holds this lock exclusively, the current thread blocks,
154and its priority is propagated to the exclusive holder.
155If the lock was initialized with the
156.Dv LO_RECURSABLE
157option the
158.Fn rm_rlock
159function can be called when the thread has already acquired reader
160access on
161.Fa rm .
162This is called
163.Dq "recursing on a lock" .
164.It Fn rm_wlock "struct rmlock *rm"
165Lock
166.Fa rm
167as a writer.
168If there are any shared owners of the lock, the current thread blocks.
169The
170.Fn rm_wlock
171function cannot be called recursively.
172.It Fn rm_runlock "struct rmlock *rm" "struct rm_priotracker* tracker"
173This function releases a shared lock previously acquired by
174.Fn rm_rlock .
175The
176.Fa tracker
177argument must match the
178.Fa tracker
179argument used for acquiring the shared lock
180.It Fn rm_wunlock "struct rmlock *rm"
181This function releases an exclusive lock previously acquired by
182.Fn rm_wlock .
183.It Fn rm_destroy "struct rmlock *rm"
184This functions destroys a lock previously initialized with
185.Fn rm_init .
186The
187.Fa rm
188lock must be unlocked.
189.It Fn rm_wowned "struct rmlock *rm"
190This function returns a non-zero value if the current thread owns an
191exclusive lock on
192.Fa rm .
193.El
194.Sh SEE ALSO
195.Xr locking 9 ,
196.Xr mutex 9 ,
197.Xr panic 9 ,
198.Xr rwlock 9 ,
199.Xr sema 9 ,
200.Xr sx 9
201.Sh HISTORY
202These
203functions appeared in
204.Fx 7.0 .
205.Sh AUTHORS
206.An -nosplit
207The
208.Nm
209facility was written by
210.An "Stephan Uphoff" .
211This manual page was written by
212.An "Gleb Smirnoff"
213for rwlock and modified to reflect rmlock by
214.An "Stephan Uphoff" .
215.Sh BUGS
216The
217.Nm
218implementation is currently not optimized for single processor systems.
219.Pp
220The
221.Nm
222implementation uses a single per CPU list shared by all
223rmlocks in the system.
224If rmlocks become popular, hashing to multiple per CPU queues may
225be needed to speed up the writer lock process.
226.Pp
227The
228.Nm
229can currently not be used as a lock argument for condition variable
230wait functions.
231