Subject: Re: MMIO and gcc re-ordering issue

From: Roland Dreier <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 14:29:33 -0700

> > Writes are posted yes, but not reordered arbitrarily.  If I have code like:
 > >
 > > 	spin_lock(&mmio_lock);
 > > 	writel(val1, reg1);
 > > 	writel(val2, reg2);
 > > 	spin_unlock(&mmio_lock);
 > >
 > > then I have a reasonable expectation that if two CPUs run this at the
 > > same time, their writes to reg1/reg2 won't be interleaved with each
 > > other (because the whole section is inside a spinlock).  And Altix
 > > violates that expectation.
 > 
 > Does that necessarily follow?
 > 
 > If you've got a large system with multiple pci bridges, could you end
 > up with posted writes coming from different cpus taking a different
 > amount of time to propagate to a device and thus colliding?

Not on x86.  And a given PCI device can only be reached from a single
host bridge, so I don't see how it can happen.  But on SGI altix
systems, there is a routed fabric between the CPU and the PCI bus, so
the reordering can happen there.  Hence mmiowb() and the endless supply
of driver bugs that it causes.

 - R.