Re: [linux-pm] [PATCH] PERF(kernel): Cleanup power events V2

Rafael J. Wysocki
2010-10-26T22:40:28Z

On Wednesday, October 27, 2010, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> On Tuesday, October 26, 2010, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> > * Alan Stern (stern@rowland.harvard.edu) wrote:
> > > On Tue, 26 Oct 2010, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> > >
> > > > * Peter Zijlstra (peterz@infradead.org) wrote:
> > > > > On Tue, 2010-10-26 at 11:56 -0500, Pierre Tardy wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > + trace_runtime_pm_usage(dev, atomic_read(&dev->power.usage_count)+1);
> > > > > > atomic_inc(&dev->power.usage_count);
> > > > >
> > > > > That's terribly racy..
> > > >
> > > > Looking at the original code, it looks racy even without considering the
> > > > tracepoint:
> > > >
> > > > int __pm_runtime_get(struct device *dev, bool sync)
> > > > {
> > > > int retval;
> > > >
> > > > + trace_runtime_pm_usage(dev, atomic_read(&dev->power.usage_count)+1);
> > > > atomic_inc(&dev->power.usage_count);
> > > > retval = sync ? pm_runtime_resume(dev) : pm_request_resume(dev);
> > > >
> > > > There is no implied memory barrier after "atomic_inc". So either all these
> > > > inc/dec are protected with mutexes or spinlocks, in which case one might wonder
> > > > why atomic operations are used at all, or it's a racy mess. (I vote for the
> > > > second option)
> > >
> > > I don't understand. What's the problem? The inc/dec are atomic
> > > because they are not protected by spinlocks, but everything else is
> > > (aside from the tracepoint, which is new).
> > >
> > > > kref should certainly be used there.
> > >
> > > What for?
> >
> > kref has the following "get":
> >
> > atomic_inc(&kref->refcount);
> > smp_mb__after_atomic_inc();
> >
> > What seems to be missing in __pm_runtime_get() and pm_runtime_get_noresume() is
> > the memory barrier after the atomic increment. The atomic increment is free to
> > be reordered into the following spinlock (within pm_request_resume or pm_request
> > resume execution) because taking a spinlock only acts as a memory barrier with
> > acquire semantic, not a full memory barrier.
> >
> > So AFAIU, the failure scenario would be as follows (sorry for the 80+ columns):
> >
> > initial conditions: usage_count = 1
> >
> > CPU A CPU B
> > 1) __pm_runtime_get() (sync = true)
> > 2) atomic_inc(&usage_count) (not committed to memory yet)
> > 3) pm_runtime_resume()
> > 4) spin_lock_irqsave(&dev->power.lock, flags);
> > 5) retval = __pm_request_resume(dev);
>
> If sync = true this is
> retval = __pm_runtime_resume(dev);
> which drops and reacquires the spinlock. In the meantime it sets
> ->power.runtime_status so that __pm_runtime_idle() will fail if run at this
> point.
>
> > 6) (execute the body of __pm_request_resume and return)
> > 7) __pm_runtime_put() (sync = true)
> > 8) if (atomic_dec_and_test(&dev->power.usage_count))
> > (still see usage_count == 1 before decrement,
> > thus decrement to 0)
> > 9) pm_runtime_idle()
> > 10) spin_unlock_irqrestore(&dev->power.lock, flags)
> > 11) spin_lock_irq(&dev->power.lock);
> > 12) retval = __pm_runtime_idle(dev);
>
> Moreover, __pm_runtime_idle() checks ->power.usage_count under the spinlock,
> so it will see it's been incremented in the meantime and it will back off.
>
> > 13) spin_unlock_irq(&dev->power.lock);
> >
> > So we end up in a situation where CPU A expects the device to be resumed, but
> > the last action performed has been to bring it to idle.
> >
> > A smp_mb__after_atomic_inc() between lines 2 and 3 would fix this.
>
> I don't think this particular race is possible. However, there is another one
> that seems to be possible (in a different function) that an explicit barrier
> will prevent from happening.
>
> It's related to pm_runtime_get_noresume(), but I think it's better to put the
> barrier where it's necessary rather than into pm_runtime_get_noresume() itself.

Actually, no. Since rpm_idle() and rpm_suspend() both check usage_count under
the spinlock, the race I was thinking about doesn't appear to be possible after
all.

Thanks,
Rafael