Synchronizing kernel threads

Two questions:

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  • One: How do you achieve synchronization between kernel threads that access common structure(s)?

  • Two: Can we assign a kernel thread to run on a selected processor on SMP machines?

    • Whoa, kernel programming questions. I haven't spent much time hacking threads in the kernel source, so I'm not the right expert. My understanding is that even the 2.6 kernel does not support genuine real-time scheduling yet. Real time scheduling allows a single thread to grip onto a CPU and not be interrupted, ever. So the answer to your second question is NO if you're trying to grip a CPU permanently. Of course, since you have the source, anything is in theory possible -- it might be too much effort to justify, though.

    To synchronise two kernel threads, just use any synchronisation technique, like a semaphore and/or signal. A crude solution if one of your threads is time-dependant and you have multiple CPUs is to use a spinlock to keep one thread busy until circumstances change. That solution is bad for user-level performance, though.

    This was first published in May 2004

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