Detecting RCU Usage Bugs

This proposal has been accepted as a session.

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Accepted Session
60 Minute BoF
Scheduled: Thursday, September 19, 2013 from 4:50 – 5:50pm in Celestin G

One Line Summary

Runtime detection of RCU usage bugs such as pointer leaks

Abstract

Catching RCU usage bugs

RCU was described to me once as, “You read the papers, and think you have gotten a hold of it. Then you make the mistake of reading code and wonder, what the heck did this McKenney guy do”. Users of RCU at this point depend mainly on a relatively small subset of developers to review it being used correctly. This BoF looks at how one can detect some usage issues at runtime, with the thought of (ab)using Intel’s non-canonical addressing and general protection fault handler to provide unlimited watchpoints.

This BoF should be of interest to folks who review RCU users, and the architecture people.

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