docs: Added details on TSan to testing.rst

Adds TSan details to testing.rst.
This includes background and reference details on TSan,
and details on how to build and test with TSan
both with and without docker.

Signed-off-by: Robert Foley <robert.foley@linaro.org>
Reviewed-by: Emilio G. Cota <cota@braap.org>
Reviewed-by: Alex Bennée <alex.bennee@linaro.org>
Signed-off-by: Alex Bennée <alex.bennee@linaro.org>
Message-Id: <20200609200738.445-13-robert.foley@linaro.org>
Message-Id: <20200612190237.30436-16-alex.bennee@linaro.org>

1 files changed, 107 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/devel/testing.rst b/docs/devel/testing.rst
index 770a987..c1ff243 100644
--- a/docs/devel/testing.rst
+++ b/docs/devel/testing.rst
@@ -397,6 +397,113 @@ list is in the ``make docker`` help text. The frequently used ones are:
 * ``DEBUG=1``: enables debug. See the previous "Debugging a Docker test
   failure" section.
 
+Thread Sanitizer
+================
+
+Thread Sanitizer (TSan) is a tool which can detect data races.  QEMU supports
+building and testing with this tool.
+
+For more information on TSan:
+
+https://github.com/google/sanitizers/wiki/ThreadSanitizerCppManual
+
+Thread Sanitizer in Docker
+---------------------------
+TSan is currently supported in the ubuntu2004 docker.
+
+The test-tsan test will build using TSan and then run make check.
+
+.. code::
+
+  make docker-test-tsan@ubuntu2004
+
+TSan warnings under docker are placed in files located at build/tsan/.
+
+We recommend using DEBUG=1 to allow launching the test from inside the docker,
+and to allow review of the warnings generated by TSan.
+
+Building and Testing with TSan
+------------------------------
+
+It is possible to build and test with TSan, with a few additional steps.
+These steps are normally done automatically in the docker.
+
+There is a one time patch needed in clang-9 or clang-10 at this time:
+
+.. code::
+
+  sed -i 's/^const/static const/g' \
+      /usr/lib/llvm-10/lib/clang/10.0.0/include/sanitizer/tsan_interface.h
+
+To configure the build for TSan:
+
+.. code::
+
+  ../configure --enable-tsan --cc=clang-10 --cxx=clang++-10 \
+               --disable-werror --extra-cflags="-O0"
+
+The runtime behavior of TSAN is controlled by the TSAN_OPTIONS environment
+variable.
+
+More information on the TSAN_OPTIONS can be found here:
+
+https://github.com/google/sanitizers/wiki/ThreadSanitizerFlags
+
+For example:
+
+.. code::
+
+  export TSAN_OPTIONS=suppressions=<path to qemu>/tests/tsan/suppressions.tsan \
+                      detect_deadlocks=false history_size=7 exitcode=0 \
+                      log_path=<build path>/tsan/tsan_warning
+
+The above exitcode=0 has TSan continue without error if any warnings are found.
+This allows for running the test and then checking the warnings afterwards.
+If you want TSan to stop and exit with error on warnings, use exitcode=66.
+
+TSan Suppressions
+-----------------
+Keep in mind that for any data race warning, although there might be a data race
+detected by TSan, there might be no actual bug here.  TSan provides several
+different mechanisms for suppressing warnings.  In general it is recommended
+to fix the code if possible to eliminate the data race rather than suppress
+the warning.
+
+A few important files for suppressing warnings are:
+
+tests/tsan/suppressions.tsan - Has TSan warnings we wish to suppress at runtime.
+The comment on each supression will typically indicate why we are
+suppressing it.  More information on the file format can be found here:
+
+https://github.com/google/sanitizers/wiki/ThreadSanitizerSuppressions
+
+tests/tsan/blacklist.tsan - Has TSan warnings we wish to disable
+at compile time for test or debug.
+Add flags to configure to enable:
+
+"--extra-cflags=-fsanitize-blacklist=<src path>/tests/tsan/blacklist.tsan"
+
+More information on the file format can be found here under "Blacklist Format":
+
+https://github.com/google/sanitizers/wiki/ThreadSanitizerFlags
+
+TSan Annotations
+----------------
+include/qemu/tsan.h defines annotations.  See this file for more descriptions
+of the annotations themselves.  Annotations can be used to suppress
+TSan warnings or give TSan more information so that it can detect proper
+relationships between accesses of data.
+
+Annotation examples can be found here:
+
+https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/tree/master/compiler-rt/test/tsan/
+
+Good files to start with are: annotate_happens_before.cpp and ignore_race.cpp
+
+The full set of annotations can be found here:
+
+https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/blob/master/compiler-rt/lib/tsan/rtl/tsan_interface_ann.cpp
+
 VM testing
 ==========