[External] Re: [PATCH v2 0/4] riscv: Add Zalasr ISA extension support

[Xu Lu]

Hi Andrea,

Great catch! Thanks a lot for your review.

The problem comes from the mixed use of acquire/release semantics via
fence and via real ld.aq/sd.rl. I would prefer your method (a). The
existing atomic acquire/release functions' implementation can be
further modified to amocas.sq/amocas.rl/lr.aq/sc.rl. I will send the
next version after I finish it and hope you can help with review then.

Best regards,
Xu Lu

On Wed, Sep 3, 2025 at 12:59 AM Andrea Parri <parri.andrea at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Xu Lu (4):
> >   riscv: add ISA extension parsing for Zalasr
> >   dt-bindings: riscv: Add Zalasr ISA extension description
> >   riscv: Instroduce Zalasr instructions
> >   riscv: Use Zalasr for smp_load_acquire/smp_store_release
>
> Informally put, our (Linux) memory consistency model specifies that any
> sequence
>
>   spin_unlock(s);
>   spin_lock(t);
>
> behaves "as it provides at least FENCE.TSO ordering between operations
> which precede the UNLOCK+LOCK sequence and operations which follow the
> sequence".  Unless I missing something, the patch set in question breaks
> such ordering property (on RISC-V): for example, a "release" annotation,
> .RL (as in spin_unlock() -> smp_store_release(), after patch #4) paired
> with an "acquire" fence, FENCE R,RW (as could be found in spin_lock() ->
> atomic_try_cmpxchg_acquire()) do not provide the specified property.
>
> I _think some solutions to the issue above include:
>
>  a) make sure an .RL annotation is always paired with an .AQ annotation
>     and viceversa an .AQ annotation is paired with an .RL annotation
>     (this approach matches the current arm64 approach/implementation);
>
>  b) on the opposite direction, always pair FENCE R,RW (or occasionally
>     FENCE R,R) with FENCE RW,W (this matches the current approach/the
>     current implementation within riscv);
>
>  c) mix the previous two solutions (resp., annotations and fences), but
>     make sure to "upgrade" any releases to provide (insert) a FENCE.TSO.
>
> (a) would align RISC-V and ARM64 (which is a good thing IMO), though it
> is probably the most invasive approach among the three approaches above
> (requiring certain changes to arch/riscv/include/asm/{cmpxchg,atomic}.h,
> which are already relatively messy due to the various ZABHA plus ZACAS
> switches).  Overall, I'm not too exited at the idea of reviewing any of
> those changes, but if the community opts for it, I'll almost definitely
> take a closer look with due calm.  ;-)
>
>   Andrea