RCU Concepts


The basic idea behind RCU (read-copy update) is to split destructive
operations into two parts, one that prevents anyone from seeing the data
item being destroyed, and one that actually carries out the destruction.
A "grace period" must elapse between the two parts, and this grace period
must be long enough that any readers accessing the item being deleted have
since dropped their references.  For example, an RCU-protected deletion
from a linked list would first remove the item from the list, wait for
a grace period to elapse, then free the element.  See the listRCU.txt
file for more information on using RCU with linked lists.


Frequently Asked Questions

o	Why would anyone want to use RCU?

	The advantage of RCU's two-part approach is that RCU readers need
	not acquire any locks, perform any atomic instructions, write to
	shared memory, or (on CPUs other than Alpha) execute any memory
	barriers.  The fact that these operations are quite expensive
	on modern CPUs is what gives RCU its performance advantages
	in read-mostly situations.  The fact that RCU readers need not
	acquire locks can also greatly simplify deadlock-avoidance code.

o	How can the updater tell when a grace period has completed
	if the RCU readers give no indication when they are done?

	Just as with spinlocks, RCU readers are not permitted to
	block, switch to user-mode execution, or enter the idle loop.
	Therefore, as soon as a CPU is seen passing through any of these
	three states, we know that that CPU has exited any previous RCU
	read-side critical sections.  So, if we remove an item from a
	linked list, and then wait until all CPUs have switched context,
	executed in user mode, or executed in the idle loop, we can
	safely free up that item.

	Preemptible variants of RCU (CONFIG_PREEMPT_RCU) get the
	same effect, but require that the readers manipulate CPU-local
	counters.  These counters allow limited types of blocking within
	RCU read-side critical sections.  SRCU also uses CPU-local
	counters, and permits general blocking within RCU read-side
	critical sections.  These variants of RCU detect grace periods
	by sampling these counters.

o	If I am running on a uniprocessor kernel, which can only do one
	thing at a time, why should I wait for a grace period?

	See the UP.txt file in this directory.

o	How can I see where RCU is currently used in the Linux kernel?

	Search for "rcu_read_lock", "rcu_read_unlock", "call_rcu",
	"rcu_read_lock_bh", "rcu_read_unlock_bh", "srcu_read_lock",
	"srcu_read_unlock", "synchronize_rcu", "synchronize_net",
	"synchronize_srcu", and the other RCU primitives.  Or grab one
	of the cscope databases from:

	http://www.rdrop.com/users/paulmck/RCU/linuxusage/rculocktab.html

o	What guidelines should I follow when writing code that uses RCU?

	See the checklist.txt file in this directory.

o	Why the name "RCU"?

	"RCU" stands for "read-copy update".  The file listRCU.txt has
	more information on where this name came from, search for
	"read-copy update" to find it.

o	I hear that RCU is patented?  What is with that?

	Yes, it is.  There are several known patents related to RCU,
	search for the string "Patent" in RTFP.txt to find them.
	Of these, one was allowed to lapse by the assignee, and the
	others have been contributed to the Linux kernel under GPL.
	There are now also LGPL implementations of user-level RCU
	available (http://liburcu.org/).

o	I hear that RCU needs work in order to support realtime kernels?

	Realtime-friendly RCU can be enabled via the CONFIG_PREEMPT_RCU
	kernel configuration parameter.

o	Where can I find more information on RCU?

	See the RTFP.txt file in this directory.
	Or point your browser at http://www.rdrop.com/users/paulmck/RCU/.
