Re: /proc dcache deadlock in do_exit

[Andrea Arcangeli <andrea@suse.de>]

On Wed, Nov 28, 2007 at 02:21:29AM +0100, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 27, 2007 at 02:38:52PM -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > I don't see why the schedule() will not return?  Because the task has
> > PF_EXITING set?  Doesn't TASK_DEAD do that?
> 
> Ouch, I assumed you couldn't sleep safely anymore in release_task
> given it's the function that will free the task structure itself and
> there was no preempt related action anywhere close to it!
> delayed_put_task_struct can be called if a quiescent point is reached
> and any scheduling would exactly allow it to run (it requires quite a
> bit of a race, with local irq triggering a reschedule and the timer
> irq invoking the tasklet to run to free the task struct before do_exit
> finishes and all other cpus in quiescent state too).
> 
> So a corollary question is how can it be safe to call
> preempt_disable() after call_rcu(delayed_put_task_struct)?
> 
> Back in sles9 preempt_disable was implemented as
> _raw_write_unlock(&tasklist_lock) and it happened _before_
> release_task, and scheduling there wouldn't return because PF_DEAD was
> already set. If mainline can come back, it will crash for a different
> reason because the task struct is long gone by the time
> release_task+schedule() runs. Either ways, still a kernel crashing bug
> there is. Or is there some magic that prevents call_rcu + schedule to
> invoke the rcu callback?
> 
> So you may need to apply this one too (this one is needed to fix the
> second bug, my previous patch is needed after applying this one):

thinking what happened once already, I think this would be more
debuggable but maybe not... dunno.

Signed-off-by: Andrea Arcangeli <andrea@suse.de>

diff --git a/kernel/exit.c b/kernel/exit.c
--- a/kernel/exit.c
+++ b/kernel/exit.c
@@ -841,6 +841,14 @@ static void exit_notify(struct task_stru
 
 	write_unlock_irq(&tasklist_lock);
 
+	/*
+	 * Task struct can go away at the first schedule if this was a
+	 * self reaping task after calling release_task. Scheduling is
+	 * forbidden until do_exit finishes.
+	 */
+	preempt_disable();
+	tsk->state = TASK_DEAD;
+
 	/* If the process is dead, release it - nobody will wait for it */
 	if (state == EXIT_DEAD)
 		release_task(tsk);
@@ -1042,10 +1050,7 @@ fastcall NORET_TYPE void do_exit(long co
 	if (tsk->splice_pipe)
 		__free_pipe_info(tsk->splice_pipe);
 
-	preempt_disable();
 	/* causes final put_task_struct in finish_task_switch(). */
-	tsk->state = TASK_DEAD;
-
 	schedule();
 	BUG();
 	/* Avoid "noreturn function does return".  */