This chapter continues the discussion from the previous chapter, on the topic of kernel synchronization and dealing with concurrency within the kernel in general. I suggest that if you haven't already, first read the previous chapter, and then continue with this one.
Here, we shall continue our learning with respect to the vast topic of kernel synchronization and handling concurrency when in kernel space. As before, the material is targeted at kernel and/or device driver developers. In this chapter, we shall cover the following:
- Using the atomic_t and refcount_t interfaces
- Using the RMW atomic operators
- Using the reader-writer spinlock
- Cache effects and false sharing
- Lock-free programming with per-CPU variables
- Lock debugging within the kernel
- Memory barriers – an introduction
