[Linux-ia64] Re: O(1) scheduler fix for 2.5-ia64

Erich Focht
2002-11-05T11:35:35Z

On Tuesday 05 November 2002 01:22, David Mosberger wrote:
> >>>>> On Mon, 4 Nov 2002 19:53:07 +0100, Erich Focht <efocht@ess.nec.de>
> >>>>> said:
>
> Erich> Hi David, this problem is wellknown and I actually thought
> Erich> that it was solved. But it looks like the complex
> Erich> prepare_arch_switch() etc. macros didn't make it into the 2.5
> Erich> kernels for IA64. They are needed on IA64 because we have to
> Erich> release the runqueue lock during context switch. This is
> Erich> similar to sparc64. Thanks to John Hawks for noticing this.
>
> Yes, this seems to have fallen through the cracks. Can you remind me
> what the deadlock scenario looked like?

This can happen when the runqueue lock is held during a context switch
which requires wrapping around the context numbers:

Example:
CPU#0:
schedule()
-> spin_lock_irq(&rq->lock)
-> context_switch()
-> wrap_mmu_context()
-> read_lock(&tasklist_lock)

CPU#1:
sys_wait4() or release_task() or forget_original_parent()
-> write_lock(&tasklist_lock)
-> do_notify_parent()
-> wake_up_parent()
-> try_to_wake_up()
-> spin_lock_irq(&parent_rq->lock)

If the parent's rq happens to be on CPU#0, we'll wait for the rq->lock
of that CPU which will not be released, because there we wait for the
tasklist_lock to become available.

Regards,
Erich