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Commit fea65126 authored by Paul E. McKenney's avatar Paul E. McKenney
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rcu: add documentation saying which RCU flavor to choose

parent 37743de3
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@@ -849,6 +849,37 @@ All: lockdep-checked RCU-protected pointer access
See the comment headers in the source code (or the docbook generated
from them) for more information.

However, given that there are no fewer than four families of RCU APIs
in the Linux kernel, how do you choose which one to use?  The following
list can be helpful:

a.	Will readers need to block?  If so, you need SRCU.

b.	What about the -rt patchset?  If readers would need to block
	in an non-rt kernel, you need SRCU.  If readers would block
	in a -rt kernel, but not in a non-rt kernel, SRCU is not
	necessary.

c.	Do you need to treat NMI handlers, hardirq handlers,
	and code segments with preemption disabled (whether
	via preempt_disable(), local_irq_save(), local_bh_disable(),
	or some other mechanism) as if they were explicit RCU readers?
	If so, you need RCU-sched.

d.	Do you need RCU grace periods to complete even in the face
	of softirq monopolization of one or more of the CPUs?  For
	example, is your code subject to network-based denial-of-service
	attacks?  If so, you need RCU-bh.

e.	Is your workload too update-intensive for normal use of
	RCU, but inappropriate for other synchronization mechanisms?
	If so, consider SLAB_DESTROY_BY_RCU.  But please be careful!

f.	Otherwise, use RCU.

Of course, this all assumes that you have determined that RCU is in fact
the right tool for your job.


8.  ANSWERS TO QUICK QUIZZES