MIL

Multithreaded Intermediate Language

Tiago Cogumbreiro
cogumbreiro@di.fc.ul.pt

Joint work with

Francisco Martins Vasco T. Vasconcelos

Universidade de Lisboa

GLUA Tech Sessions ’08

MIL
Motivation

Outline

1 Motivation

2 A Lock Discipline

3 Data Races

4 The Language

5 Examples
Singlecore
Multicore
MIL
Motivation

Context

Fine-grained multithreading
Thousand of threads
MIL
Motivation

Goal

Concurrency primitives
Shared memory
Security properties:
typed
enforce a memory usage discipline
MIL
Motivation

Our approach

Typed assembly language

Support threads
Flannagan’s and Abadi’s locking discipline
MIL
Motivation

MIL’s Architecture

CPU core 1 CPU core N

registers registers
local local
memory memory

run pool heap

MIL
A Lock Discipline

Outline

1 Motivation

2 A Lock Discipline

3 Data Races

4 The Language

5 Examples
MIL
A Lock Discipline

/*
* Lock surface. (Don’t forget to call Unlock)
*/
void nD3D9Surface::Lock(int &pitch, void** data)

The Nebula Device, a real-time 3D game/visualization engine.

MIL
A Lock Discipline

What if someone forgets?

MIL
A Lock Discipline

else if(wndPtr->irefCount < 0)

{
/* This else if is useful to monitor
the WIN_ReleaseWndPtr function */
ERR("forgot a Lock on %p somewhere\n",wndPtr);
}
/* unlock all WND structures for thread safeness */
USER_Unlock();

WINE 20050211
MIL
A Lock Discipline

/* This should never happen, otherwise someone

forgot to get the HostEntry->lock! */
CODA_ASSERT(HostEntry->id == 0);

CODA 5.3.20
MIL
A Lock Discipline

Is that a solution?
MIL
A Lock Discipline

Rules

Close known lock → acquires permission to unlock

Obligated to unlock the lock or transfer that obligation
MIL
Data Races

Outline

1 Motivation

2 A Lock Discipline

3 Data Races

4 The Language

5 Examples
What if I could change your
poker’s hand?
MIL
Data Races

Mutual Exclusion

One thread (or process) alone handles the resource.

MIL
Data Races

Enforcing mutual exclusion

Core 1 Core 2 Core 3

MIL
Data Races

No race conditions!
MIL
The Language

Outline

1 Motivation

2 A Lock Discipline

3 Data Races

4 The Language

5 Examples
MIL
The Language

Memory and control flow

Move r := v
Alloc r := malloc [~τ ]
Load r := v [n]
Store r [n] := v
Jump jump v
Conditional Jump if r = v jump v
No call stack.
MIL
The Language

Security properties

Unset register are not read

Loads and stores target tuples
Stores of the expected type only
Jump to code blocks only
Arithmetic only with registers holding integers
MIL
The Language

Threads

Create fork v
Finish yield

Cooperative threads
MIL
The Language

Security properties

Zero closed locks in order to yield

Forking code blocks only
MIL
The Language

Test and set

Atomic operation:

int testSet(int *ptr) {

int v = *ptr;
*ptr = 1;
return v;
}
MIL
The Language

Implementing a lock with test and set

Case 1 → 1: was locked

Case 0 → 1: was unlocked
MIL
The Language

Locks

Create α, r := newLock
Acquire r := testSetLock v
Release unlock v
Share share r guarded by α
MIL
The Language

Security properties

Test and set lock open locks

Unlock closed locks, with permission
Target locks (type)
MIL
Examples

Outline

1 Motivation

2 A Lock Discipline

3 Data Races

4 The Language

5 Examples
MIL
Examples

Factorial

fract (r1:int) {
r2 := 1
if r1 = 0 jump fractFinish
jump doFract
}
doFract (r1:int, r2:int) {
if r1 = 1 jump fractFinish
r2 := r2 * r1
r1 := r1 - 1
jump doFract
}
fractFinish (r2:int) {
-- do some work
}
MIL
Examples

Creating a tuple

prepare () {
r1 := malloc [int, int]
r1[0] := 10
r1[1] := 20
share r1 guarded by l
jump compute
}
compute (r1: <int, int>^l) {
-- do some work
}
MIL
Examples

Spin-lock

spinLock (r1:<lock(l)>^l, r2:<int>^l) {

r3 := testSetLock r1
if r3 = 0 jump criticalRegion
jump spinLock
}
criticalRegion (r1: <lock(l)>^l, r2:<int>^l)
requires (l) {
r1[0] := 10
unlock r1
yield
}
MIL
Examples

Sleep-lock

sleepLock (r1:<lock(l)>^l, r2:<int>^l) {

r3 := testSetLock r1
if r3 = 0 jump criticalRegion
fork sleepLock
yield
}
criticalRegion (r1: <lock(l)>^l, r2:<int>^l)
requires (l) {
r1[0] := 10
unlock r1
yield
}
MIL
Examples

Omitted features

Universal quantifier
Existential quantifier
Recursive type
Read-only tuples
MIL
Examples

Further work

Compare and swap for lock-free data structures

Dead-lock freedom
MIL
Examples

For publications and implementation, please refer to

http://gloss.di.fc.ul.pt/mil

Thank you.

Any questions?