structured data, such as the matrices used in scientific programs, and
is thus inapplicable to most data structures in operating-system kernels.
+In 1992, Henry (now Alexia) Massalin completed a dissertation advising
+parallel programmers to defer processing when feasible to simplify
+synchronization. RCU makes extremely heavy use of this advice.
+
In 1993, Jacobson [Jacobson93] verbally described what is perhaps the
simplest deferred-free technique: simply waiting a fixed amount of time
before freeing blocks awaiting deferred free. Jacobson did not describe
Robert Olsson described an RCU-protected trie-hash combination
[RobertOlsson2006a].
+2007 saw the journal version of the award-winning RCU paper from 2006
+[ThomasEHart2007a], as well as a paper demonstrating use of Promela
+and Spin to mechanically verify an optimization to Oleg Nesterov's
+QRCU [PaulEMcKenney2007QRCUspin], a design document describing
+preemptible RCU [PaulEMcKenney2007PreemptibleRCU], and the three-part
+LWN "What is RCU?" series [PaulEMcKenney2007WhatIsRCUFundamentally,
+PaulEMcKenney2008WhatIsRCUUsage, and PaulEMcKenney2008WhatIsRCUAPI].
Bibtex Entries
,Year="1991"
}
+@phdthesis{HMassalinPhD
+,author="H. Massalin"
+,title="Synthesis: An Efficient Implementation of Fundamental Operating
+System Services"
+,school="Columbia University"
+,address="New York, NY"
+,year="1992"
+,annotation="
+ Mondo optimizing compiler.
+ Wait-free stuff.
+ Good advice: defer work to avoid synchronization.
+"
+}
+
@unpublished{Jacobson93
,author="Van Jacobson"
,title="Avoid Read-Side Locking Via Delayed Free"
"
}
+@unpublished{PaulEMcKenney2007PreemptibleRCU
+,Author="Paul E. McKenney"
+,Title="The design of preemptible read-copy-update"
+,month="October"
+,day="8"
+,year="2007"
+,note="Available:
+\url{http://lwn.net/Articles/253651/}
+[Viewed October 25, 2007]"
+,annotation="
+ LWN article describing the design of preemptible RCU.
+"
+}
+
+########################################################################
+#
+# "What is RCU?" LWN series.
+#
+
+@unpublished{PaulEMcKenney2007WhatIsRCUFundamentally
+,Author="Paul E. McKenney and Jonathan Walpole"
+,Title="What is {RCU}, Fundamentally?"
+,month="December"
+,day="17"
+,year="2007"
+,note="Available:
+\url{http://lwn.net/Articles/262464/}
+[Viewed December 27, 2007]"
+,annotation="
+ Lays out the three basic components of RCU: (1) publish-subscribe,
+ (2) wait for pre-existing readers to complete, and (2) maintain
+ multiple versions.
+"
+}
+
+@unpublished{PaulEMcKenney2008WhatIsRCUUsage
+,Author="Paul E. McKenney"
+,Title="What is {RCU}? Part 2: Usage"
+,month="January"
+,day="4"
+,year="2008"
+,note="Available:
+\url{http://lwn.net/Articles/263130/}
+[Viewed January 4, 2008]"
+,annotation="
+ Lays out six uses of RCU:
+ 1. RCU is a Reader-Writer Lock Replacement
+ 2. RCU is a Restricted Reference-Counting Mechanism
+ 3. RCU is a Bulk Reference-Counting Mechanism
+ 4. RCU is a Poor Man's Garbage Collector
+ 5. RCU is a Way of Providing Existence Guarantees
+ 6. RCU is a Way of Waiting for Things to Finish
+"
+}
+
+@unpublished{PaulEMcKenney2008WhatIsRCUAPI
+,Author="Paul E. McKenney"
+,Title="{RCU} part 3: the {RCU} {API}"
+,month="January"
+,day="17"
+,year="2008"
+,note="Available:
+\url{http://lwn.net/Articles/264090/}
+[Viewed January 10, 2008]"
+,annotation="
+ Gives an overview of the Linux-kernel RCU API and a brief annotated RCU
+ bibliography.
+"
+}
+
+@article{DinakarGuniguntala2008IBMSysJ
+,author="D. Guniguntala and P. E. McKenney and J. Triplett and J. Walpole"
+,title="The read-copy-update mechanism for supporting real-time applications on shared-memory multiprocessor systems with {Linux}"
+,Year="2008"
+,Month="April"
+,journal="IBM Systems Journal"
+,volume="47"
+,number="2"
+,pages="@@-@@"
+,annotation="
+ RCU, realtime RCU, sleepable RCU, performance.
+"
+}
+
+@article{PaulEMcKenney2008RCUOSR
+,author="Paul E. McKenney and Jonathan Walpole"
+,title="Introducing technology into the {Linux} kernel: a case study"
+,Year="2008"
+,journal="SIGOPS Oper. Syst. Rev."
+,volume="42"
+,number="5"
+,pages="4--17"
+,issn="0163-5980"
+,doi={http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1400097.1400099}
+,publisher="ACM"
+,address="New York, NY, USA"
+,annotation={
+ Linux changed RCU to a far greater degree than RCU has changed Linux.
+}
+}
+
+@unpublished{PaulEMcKenney2008HierarchicalRCU
+,Author="Paul E. McKenney"
+,Title="Hierarchical {RCU}"
+,month="November"
+,day="3"
+,year="2008"
+,note="Available:
+\url{http://lwn.net/Articles/305782/}
+[Viewed November 6, 2008]"
+,annotation="
+ RCU with combining-tree-based grace-period detection,
+ permitting it to handle thousands of CPUs.
+"
+}
+
+@conference{PaulEMcKenney2009MaliciousURCU
+,Author="Paul E. McKenney"
+,Title="Using a Malicious User-Level {RCU} to Torture {RCU}-Based Algorithms"
+,Booktitle="linux.conf.au 2009"
+,month="January"
+,year="2009"
+,address="Hobart, Australia"
+,note="Available:
+\url{http://www.rdrop.com/users/paulmck/RCU/urcutorture.2009.01.22a.pdf}
+[Viewed February 2, 2009]"
+,annotation="
+ Realtime RCU and torture-testing RCU uses.
+"
+}
+
+@unpublished{MathieuDesnoyers2009URCU
+,Author="Mathieu Desnoyers"
+,Title="[{RFC} git tree] Userspace {RCU} (urcu) for {Linux}"
+,month="February"
+,day="5"
+,year="2009"
+,note="Available:
+\url{http://lkml.org/lkml/2009/2/5/572}
+\url{git://lttng.org/userspace-rcu.git}
+[Viewed February 20, 2009]"
+,annotation="
+ Mathieu Desnoyers's user-space RCU implementation.
+ git://lttng.org/userspace-rcu.git
+"
+}
+
+@unpublished{PaulEMcKenney2009BloatWatchRCU
+,Author="Paul E. McKenney"
+,Title="{RCU}: The {Bloatwatch} Edition"
+,month="March"
+,day="17"
+,year="2009"
+,note="Available:
+\url{http://lwn.net/Articles/323929/}
+[Viewed March 20, 2009]"
+,annotation="
+ Uniprocessor assumptions allow simplified RCU implementation.
+"
+}