Re: mutexs for synchronization between kernel threads?

V Ganesh (ganesh@vxindia.veritas.com)
Thu, 22 Apr 1999 03:46:00 +0530 (IST)


> Well, under 2.2.6 spin_lock and spin_unlock in the non SMP case are
> NOOPS (do { } while(0)). This is not what I want.

no, this _is_ what you want. remember that on UP, a kernel thread cannot
thread can be pre-empted unless it voluntarily blocks. this itself
guarantees mutual exclusion for your threads A and B. that's why spinlocks
are no-ops in UP.
what this means is that A and B do not run in "parallel". however,
interrupts may occur "in parallel" or asynchronous with A and B, so you
need to protect against them.
that's why you use spinlock_irqsave and spinlock_irqrestore to protect your
structures in A and B rather than plain spinlocks. they work out to
save_flags(flags);cli() and restore_flags(flags) in UP which is exactly
what you want.

ganesh

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