Re: [RFC] [PATCH 2/2] cgroups: make procs file writable

[Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>]

On 06/02, Paul Menage wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 1:58 PM, Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com> wrote:
> >> The "it" that you're proposing to remove is in fact the code that
> >> handles those races.
> >
> > In that case I confused, and I thought we already agreed that
> > the PF_EXITING check in attach_task_by_pid() is not strictly needed
> > for correctness.
>
> Not quite - something is required for correctness, and the PF_EXITING
> check provides that correctness, with a very small window (between
> setting PF_EXITING and calling cgroup_exit) where we might arguably
> have been able to move the thread but decline to do so because it's
> simpler not to do so and no-one cares. That's the optimization that I
> meant - the data structures are slightly simpler since there's no way
> to tell when a task has passed cgroup_exit(), and instead we just see
> if they've passed PF_EXITING.
>
> >
> > Once again, the task can call do_exit() and set PF_EXITING right
> > after the check.
>
> Yes, the important part is that they haven't set it *before* the check
> in attach_task_by_pid(). If they have set it before that, then they
> could be anywhere in the exit path after PF_EXITING, and we decline to
> move them since it's possible that they've already passed
> cgroup_exit(). If the exiting task has not yet set PF_EXITING, then it
> can't possibly get into the critical section in cgroup_exit() since
> attach_task_by_pid() holds task->alloc_lock.

It doesn't ? At least in Linus's tree.

cgroup_attach_task() does, and this time PF_EXITING is understandable.

Oleg.