============
LITMUS TESTS
============
CoRR+poonceonce+Once.litmus
Test of read-read coherence, that is, whether or not two
successive reads from the same variable are ordered.
CoRW+poonceonce+Once.litmus
Test of read-write coherence, that is, whether or not a read
from a given variable followed by a write to that same variable
are ordered.
CoWR+poonceonce+Once.litmus
Test of write-read coherence, that is, whether or not a write
to a given variable followed by a read from that same variable
are ordered.
CoWW+poonceonce.litmus
Test of write-write coherence, that is, whether or not two
successive writes to the same variable are ordered.
IRIW+fencembonceonces+OnceOnce.litmus
Test of independent reads from independent writes with smp_mb()
between each pairs of reads. In other words, is smp_mb()
sufficient to cause two different reading processes to agree on
the order of a pair of writes, where each write is to a different
variable by a different process? This litmus test is forbidden
by LKMM's propagation rule.
IRIW+poonceonces+OnceOnce.litmus
Test of independent reads from independent writes with nothing
between each pairs of reads. In other words, is anything at all
needed to cause two different reading processes to agree on the
order of a pair of writes, where each write is to a different
variable by a different process?
ISA2+pooncelock+pooncelock+pombonce.litmus
Tests whether the ordering provided by a lock-protected S
litmus test is visible to an external process whose accesses are
separated by smp_mb(). This addition of an external process to
S is otherwise known as ISA2.
ISA2+poonceonces.litmus
As below, but with store-release replaced with WRITE_ONCE()
and load-acquire replaced with READ_ONCE().
ISA2+pooncerelease+poacquirerelease+poacquireonce.litmus
Can a release-acquire chain order a prior store against
a later load?
LB+fencembonceonce+ctrlonceonce.litmus
Does a control dependency and an smp_mb() suffice for the
load-buffering litmus test, where each process reads from one
of two variables then writes to the other?
LB+poacquireonce+pooncerelease.litmus
Does a release-acquire pair suffice for the load-buffering
litmus test, where each process reads from one of two variables then
writes to the other?
LB+poonceonces.litmus
As above, but with store-release replaced with WRITE_ONCE()
and load-acquire replaced with READ_ONCE().
LB+unlocklockonceonce+poacquireonce.litmus
Does a unlock+lock pair provides ordering guarantee between a
load and a store?
MP+onceassign+derefonce.litmus
As below, but with rcu_assign_pointer() and an rcu_dereference().
MP+polockmbonce+poacquiresilsil.litmus
Protect the access with a lock and an smp_mb__after_spinlock()
in one process, and use an acquire load followed by a pair of
spin_is_locked() calls in the other process.
MP+polockonce+poacquiresilsil.litmus
Protect the access with a lock in one process, and use an
acquire load followed by a pair of spin_is_locked() calls
in the other process.
MP+polocks.litmus
As below, but with the second access of the writer process
and the first access of reader process protected by a lock.
MP+poonceonces.litmus
As below, but without the smp_rmb() and smp_wmb().
MP+pooncerelease+poacquireonce.litmus
As below, but with a release-acquire chain.
MP+porevlocks.litmus
As below, but with the first access of the writer process
and the second access of reader process protected by a lock.
MP+unlocklockonceonce+fencermbonceonce.litmus
Does a unlock+lock pair provides ordering guarantee between a
store and another store?
MP+fencewmbonceonce+fencermbonceonce.litmus
Does a smp_wmb() (between the stores) and an smp_rmb() (between
the loads) suffice for the message-passing litmus test, where one
process writes data and then a flag, and the other process reads
the flag and then the data. (This is similar to the ISA2 tests,
but with two processes instead of three.)
R+fencembonceonces.litmus
This is the fully ordered (via smp_mb()) version of one of
the classic counterintuitive litmus tests that illustrates the
effects of store propagation delays.
R+poonceonces.litmus
As above, but without the smp_mb() invocations.
SB+fencembonceonces.litmus
This is the fully ordered (again, via smp_mb() version of store
buffering, which forms the core of Dekker's mutual-exclusion
algorithm.
SB+poonceonces.litmus
As above, but without the smp_mb() invocations.
SB+rfionceonce-poonceonces.litmus
This litmus test demonstrates that LKMM is not fully multicopy
atomic. (Neither is it other multicopy atomic.) This litmus test
also demonstrates the "locations" debugging aid, which designates
additional registers and locations to be printed out in the dump
of final states in the herd7 output. Without the "locations"
statement, only those registers and locations mentioned in the
"exists" clause will be printed.
S+poonceonces.litmus
As below, but without the smp_wmb() and acquire load.
S+fencewmbonceonce+poacquireonce.litmus
Can a smp_wmb(), instead of a release, and an acquire order
a prior store against a subsequent store?
WRC+poonceonces+Once.litmus
WRC+pooncerelease+fencermbonceonce+Once.litmus
These two are members of an extension of the MP litmus-test
class in which the first write is moved to a separate process.
The second is forbidden because smp_store_release() is
A-cumulative in LKMM.
Z6.0+pooncelock+pooncelock+pombonce.litmus
Is the ordering provided by a spin_unlock() and a subsequent
spin_lock() sufficient to make ordering apparent to accesses
by a process not holding the lock?
Z6.0+pooncelock+poonceLock+pombonce.litmus
As above, but with smp_mb__after_spinlock() immediately
following the spin_lock().
Z6.0+pooncerelease+poacquirerelease+fencembonceonce.litmus
Is the ordering provided by a release-acquire chain sufficient
to make ordering apparent to accesses by a process that does
not participate in that release-acquire chain?
A great many more litmus tests are available here:
https://github.com/paulmckrcu/litmus
==================
LITMUS TEST NAMING
==================
Litmus tests are usually named based on their contents, which means that
looking at the name tells you what the litmus test does. The naming
scheme covers litmus tests having a single cycle that passes through
each process exactly once, so litmus tests not fitting this description
are named on an ad-hoc basis.
The structure of a litmus-test name is the litmus-test class, a plus
sign ("+"), and one string for each process, separated by plus signs.
The end of the name is ".litmus".
The litmus-test classes may be found in the infamous test6.pdf:
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~pes20/ppc-supplemental/test6.pdf
Each class defines the pattern of accesses and of the variables accessed.
For example, if the one process writes to a pair of variables, and
the other process reads from these same variables, the corresponding
litmus-test class is "MP" (message passing), which may be found on the
left-hand end of the second row of tests on page one of test6.pdf.
The strings used to identify the actions carried out by each process are
complex due to a desire to have short(er) names. Thus, there is a tool to
generate these strings from a given litmus test's actions. For example,
consider the processes from SB+rfionceonce-poonceonces.litmus:
P0(int *x, int *y)
{
int r1;
int r2;
WRITE_ONCE(*x, 1);
r1 = READ_ONCE(*x);
r2 = READ_ONCE(*y);
}
P1(int *x, int *y)
{
int r3;
int r4;
WRITE_ONCE(*y, 1);
r3 = READ_ONCE(*y);
r4 = READ_ONCE(*x);
}
The next step is to construct a space-separated list of descriptors,
interleaving descriptions of the relation between a pair of consecutive
accesses with descriptions of the second access in the pair.
P0()'s WRITE_ONCE() is read by its first READ_ONCE(), which is a
reads-from link (rf) and internal to the P0() process. This is
"rfi", which is an abbreviation for "reads-from internal". Because
some of the tools string these abbreviations together with space
characters separating processes, the first character is capitalized,
resulting in "Rfi".
P0()'s second access is a READ_ONCE(), as opposed to (for example)
smp_load_acquire(), so next is "Once". Thus far, we have "Rfi Once".
P0()'s third access is also a READ_ONCE(), but to y rather than x.
This is related to P0()'s second access by program order ("po"),
to a different variable ("d"), and both accesses are reads ("RR").
The resulting descriptor is "PodRR". Because P0()'s third access is
READ_ONCE(), we add another "Once" descriptor.
A from-read ("fre") relation links P0()'s third to P1()'s first
access, and the resulting descriptor is "Fre". P1()'s first access is
WRITE_ONCE(), which as before gives the descriptor "Once". The string
thus far is thus "Rfi Once PodRR Once Fre Once".
The remainder of P1() is similar to P0(), which means we add
"Rfi Once PodRR Once". Another fre links P1()'s last access to
P0()'s first access, which is WRITE_ONCE(), so we add "Fre Once".
The full string is thus:
Rfi Once PodRR Once Fre Once Rfi Once PodRR Once Fre Once
This string can be given to the "norm7" and "classify7" tools to
produce the name:
$ norm7 -bell linux-kernel.bell \
Rfi Once PodRR Once Fre Once Rfi Once PodRR Once Fre Once | \
sed -e 's/:.*//g'
SB+rfionceonce-poonceonces
Adding the ".litmus" suffix: SB+rfionceonce-poonceonces.litmus
The descriptors that describe connections between consecutive accesses
within the cycle through a given litmus test can be provided by the herd7
tool (Rfi, Po, Fre, and so on) or by the linux-kernel.bell file (Once,
Release, Acquire, and so on).
To see the full list of descriptors, execute the following command:
$ diyone7 -bell linux-kernel.bell -show edges
9ba7d3b3b8