Rich Felker
e01b5939b3
after all but the last thread exits, the next thread to observe libc.threads_minus_1==0 and conclude that it can skip locking fails to synchronize with any changes to memory that were made by the last-exiting thread. this can produce data races. on some archs, at least x86, memory synchronization is unlikely to be a problem; however, with the inline locks in malloc, skipping the lock also eliminated the compiler barrier, and caused code that needed to re-check chunk in-use bits after obtaining the lock to reuse a stale value, possibly from before the process became single-threaded. this in turn produced corruption of the heap state. some uses of libc.threads_minus_1 remain, especially for allocation of new TLS in the dynamic linker; otherwise, it could be removed entirely. it's made non-volatile to reflect that the remaining accesses are only made under lock on the thread list. instead of libc.threads_minus_1, libc.threaded is now used for skipping locks. the difference is that libc.threaded is permanently true once an additional thread has been created. this will produce some performance regression in processes that are mostly single-threaded but occasionally creating threads. in the future it may be possible to bring back the full lock-skipping, but more care needs to be taken to produce a safe design.
musl libc
musl, pronounced like the word "mussel", is an MIT-licensed
implementation of the standard C library targetting the Linux syscall
API, suitable for use in a wide range of deployment environments. musl
offers efficient static and dynamic linking support, lightweight code
and low runtime overhead, strong fail-safe guarantees under correct
usage, and correctness in the sense of standards conformance and
safety. musl is built on the principle that these goals are best
achieved through simple code that is easy to understand and maintain.
The 1.1 release series for musl features coverage for all interfaces
defined in ISO C99 and POSIX 2008 base, along with a number of
non-standardized interfaces for compatibility with Linux, BSD, and
glibc functionality.
For basic installation instructions, see the included INSTALL file.
Information on full musl-targeted compiler toolchains, system
bootstrapping, and Linux distributions built on musl can be found on
the project website:
http://www.musl-libc.org/