On ARM, seqcst loads and stores (which QEMU does not use) are compiled
respectively as LDAR and STLR instructions. Even though LDAR is
also used for load-acquire operations, it also waits for all STLRs to
leave the store buffer. Thus, LDAR and STLR alone are load-acquire
and store-release operations, but LDAR also provides store-against-load
ordering as long as the previous store is a STLR.
Compare this to ARMv7, where store-release is DMB+STR and load-acquire
is LDR+DMB, but an additional DMB is needed between store-seqcst and
load-seqcst (e.g. DMB+STR+DMB+LDR+DMB); or with x86, where MOV provides
load-acquire and store-release semantics and the two can be reordered.
Likewise, on ARM sequentially consistent read-modify-write operations only
need to use LDAXR and STLXR respectively for the load and the store, while
on x86 they need to use the stronger LOCK prefix.
In a strange twist of events, however, the _stronger_ semantics
of the ARM instructions can end up causing bugs on ARM, not on x86.
The problems occur when seqcst atomics are mixed with relaxed atomics.
QEMU's atomics try to bridge the Linux API (that most of the developers
are familiar with) and the C11 API, and the two have a substantial
difference:
- in Linux, strongly-ordered atomics such as atomic_add_return() affect
the global ordering of _all_ memory operations, including for example
READ_ONCE()/WRITE_ONCE()
- in C11, sequentially consistent atomics (except for seq-cst fences)
only affect the ordering of sequentially consistent operations.
In particular, since relaxed loads are done with LDR on ARM, they are
not ordered against seqcst stores (which are done with STLR).
QEMU implements high-level synchronization primitives with the idea that
the primitives contain the necessary memory barriers, and the callers can
use relaxed atomics (qatomic_read/qatomic_set) or even regular accesses.
This is very much incompatible with the C11 view that seqcst accesses
are only ordered against other seqcst accesses, and requires using seqcst
fences as in the following example:
qatomic_set(&y, 1); qatomic_set(&x, 1);
smp_mb(); smp_mb();
... qatomic_read(&x) ... ... qatomic_read(&y) ...
When a qatomic_*() read-modify write operation is used instead of one
or both stores, developers that are more familiar with the Linux API may
be tempted to omit the smp_mb(), which will work on x86 but not on ARM.
This nasty difference between Linux and C11 read-modify-write operations
has already caused issues in util/async.c and more are being found.
Provide something similar to Linux smp_mb__before/after_atomic(); this
has the double function of documenting clearly why there is a memory
barrier, and avoiding a double barrier on x86 and s390x systems.
The new macro can already be put to use in qatomic_mb_set().
Reviewed-by: Richard Henderson <richard.henderson@linaro.org>
Reviewed-by: David Hildenbrand <david@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
===========
QEMU README
===========
QEMU is a generic and open source machine & userspace emulator and
virtualizer.
QEMU is capable of emulating a complete machine in software without any
need for hardware virtualization support. By using dynamic translation,
it achieves very good performance. QEMU can also integrate with the Xen
and KVM hypervisors to provide emulated hardware while allowing the
hypervisor to manage the CPU. With hypervisor support, QEMU can achieve
near native performance for CPUs. When QEMU emulates CPUs directly it is
capable of running operating systems made for one machine (e.g. an ARMv7
board) on a different machine (e.g. an x86_64 PC board).
QEMU is also capable of providing userspace API virtualization for Linux
and BSD kernel interfaces. This allows binaries compiled against one
architecture ABI (e.g. the Linux PPC64 ABI) to be run on a host using a
different architecture ABI (e.g. the Linux x86_64 ABI). This does not
involve any hardware emulation, simply CPU and syscall emulation.
QEMU aims to fit into a variety of use cases. It can be invoked directly
by users wishing to have full control over its behaviour and settings.
It also aims to facilitate integration into higher level management
layers, by providing a stable command line interface and monitor API.
It is commonly invoked indirectly via the libvirt library when using
open source applications such as oVirt, OpenStack and virt-manager.
QEMU as a whole is released under the GNU General Public License,
version 2. For full licensing details, consult the LICENSE file.
Documentation
=============
Documentation can be found hosted online at
`<https://www.qemu.org/documentation/>`_. The documentation for the
current development version that is available at
`<https://www.qemu.org/docs/master/>`_ is generated from the ``docs/``
folder in the source tree, and is built by `Sphinx
<https://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/>`_.
Building
========
QEMU is multi-platform software intended to be buildable on all modern
Linux platforms, OS-X, Win32 (via the Mingw64 toolchain) and a variety
of other UNIX targets. The simple steps to build QEMU are:
.. code-block:: shell
mkdir build
cd build
../configure
make
Additional information can also be found online via the QEMU website:
* `<https://wiki.qemu.org/Hosts/Linux>`_
* `<https://wiki.qemu.org/Hosts/Mac>`_
* `<https://wiki.qemu.org/Hosts/W32>`_
Submitting patches
==================
The QEMU source code is maintained under the GIT version control system.
.. code-block:: shell
git clone https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu.git
When submitting patches, one common approach is to use 'git
format-patch' and/or 'git send-email' to format & send the mail to the
qemu-devel@nongnu.org mailing list. All patches submitted must contain
a 'Signed-off-by' line from the author. Patches should follow the
guidelines set out in the `style section
<https://www.qemu.org/docs/master/devel/style.html>`_ of
the Developers Guide.
Additional information on submitting patches can be found online via
the QEMU website
* `<https://wiki.qemu.org/Contribute/SubmitAPatch>`_
* `<https://wiki.qemu.org/Contribute/TrivialPatches>`_
The QEMU website is also maintained under source control.
.. code-block:: shell
git clone https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu-web.git
* `<https://www.qemu.org/2017/02/04/the-new-qemu-website-is-up/>`_
A 'git-publish' utility was created to make above process less
cumbersome, and is highly recommended for making regular contributions,
or even just for sending consecutive patch series revisions. It also
requires a working 'git send-email' setup, and by default doesn't
automate everything, so you may want to go through the above steps
manually for once.
For installation instructions, please go to
* `<https://github.com/stefanha/git-publish>`_
The workflow with 'git-publish' is:
.. code-block:: shell
$ git checkout master -b my-feature
$ # work on new commits, add your 'Signed-off-by' lines to each
$ git publish
Your patch series will be sent and tagged as my-feature-v1 if you need to refer
back to it in the future.
Sending v2:
.. code-block:: shell
$ git checkout my-feature # same topic branch
$ # making changes to the commits (using 'git rebase', for example)
$ git publish
Your patch series will be sent with 'v2' tag in the subject and the git tip
will be tagged as my-feature-v2.
Bug reporting
=============
The QEMU project uses GitLab issues to track bugs. Bugs
found when running code built from QEMU git or upstream released sources
should be reported via:
* `<https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/issues>`_
If using QEMU via an operating system vendor pre-built binary package, it
is preferable to report bugs to the vendor's own bug tracker first. If
the bug is also known to affect latest upstream code, it can also be
reported via GitLab.
For additional information on bug reporting consult:
* `<https://wiki.qemu.org/Contribute/ReportABug>`_
ChangeLog
=========
For version history and release notes, please visit
`<https://wiki.qemu.org/ChangeLog/>`_ or look at the git history for
more detailed information.
Contact
=======
The QEMU community can be contacted in a number of ways, with the two
main methods being email and IRC
* `<mailto:qemu-devel@nongnu.org>`_
* `<https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/qemu-devel>`_
* #qemu on irc.oftc.net
Information on additional methods of contacting the community can be
found online via the QEMU website:
* `<https://wiki.qemu.org/Contribute/StartHere>`_
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