[PATCH] Deprecate synchronize_kernel, GPL replacement

The synchronize_kernel() primitive is used for quite a few different purposes:
waiting for RCU readers, waiting for NMIs, waiting for interrupts, and so on.
This makes RCU code harder to read, since synchronize_kernel() might or might
not have matching rcu_read_lock()s.  This patch creates a new
synchronize_rcu() that is to be used for RCU readers and a new
synchronize_sched() that is used for the rest.  These two new primitives
currently have the same implementation, but this is might well change with
additional real-time support.  Both new primitives are GPL-only, the old
primitive is deprecated.

Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@us.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>

1 files changed, 14 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/kernel/rcupdate.c b/kernel/rcupdate.c
index ad497722f04f..f436993bd590 100644
--- a/kernel/rcupdate.c
+++ b/kernel/rcupdate.c
@@ -444,15 +444,18 @@ static void wakeme_after_rcu(struct rcu_head  *head)
 }
 
 /**
- * synchronize_kernel - wait until a grace period has elapsed.
+ * synchronize_rcu - wait until a grace period has elapsed.
  *
  * Control will return to the caller some time after a full grace
  * period has elapsed, in other words after all currently executing RCU
  * read-side critical sections have completed.  RCU read-side critical
  * sections are delimited by rcu_read_lock() and rcu_read_unlock(),
  * and may be nested.
+ *
+ * If your read-side code is not protected by rcu_read_lock(), do -not-
+ * use synchronize_rcu().
  */
-void synchronize_kernel(void)
+void synchronize_rcu(void)
 {
 	struct rcu_synchronize rcu;
 
@@ -464,7 +467,16 @@ void synchronize_kernel(void)
 	wait_for_completion(&rcu.completion);
 }
 
+/*
+ * Deprecated, use synchronize_rcu() or synchronize_sched() instead.
+ */
+void synchronize_kernel(void)
+{
+	synchronize_rcu();
+}
+
 module_param(maxbatch, int, 0);
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(call_rcu);  /* WARNING: GPL-only in April 2006. */
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(call_rcu_bh);  /* WARNING: GPL-only in April 2006. */
+EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(synchronize_rcu);
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(synchronize_kernel);  /* WARNING: GPL-only in April 2006. */