Re: [PATCH 7/9] PM: Add suspend blocking work.

Arve Hjønnevåg
2010-04-24T07:21:58Z

2010/4/23 Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>:
> Hello,
>
> On 04/24/2010 12:49 AM, Arve Hjønnevåg wrote:
>> I want the suspend blocker active when the work is pending or running.
>> I did not see a way to do this on top of the workqueue api without
>> adding additional locking.
>
> Well, then add additional locking.  suspend_blocker is far away from
> being a hot path and there's nothing wrong with additional locking as
> long as everything is wrapped inside proper APIs.  Adding stuff to the
> core code for things as specific as this is much worse.
>

OK, I'll try to do this. Do you want it in a separate header file as well?

>> If the work is both queued and starts running on another workqueue
>> between "get_wq_data(work) == cwq" and "!work_pending(work)", then
>> suspend_unblock will be called when it shouldn't. It should work fine
>> if I change to it check pending first though, since it cannot move
>> back to the current workqueue without locking cwq->lock first.
>
> The code is more fundamentally broken.  Once work->func has started
> executing, the work pointer can't be dereferenced as work callback is
> allowed to free or re-purpose the work data structure and in the same
> manner you can't check for pending status after execution has
> completed.
>

I only touch the work structure after the callback has returned for
suspend blocking work, which does not allow that.

>> Or are you talking about the race when the callback is running on
>> multiple (cpu) workqueues at the same time. In that case the suspend
>> blocker is released when the callback returns from the last workqueue
>> is was queued on, not when all the callbacks have returned. On that
>> note, is it ever safe to use flush_work and cancel_work_sync for work
>> queues on anything other than a single single threaded workqueue?
>
> flush_work() is guaranteed only to flush from the last queued cpu but
> cancel_work_sync() will guarantee that no cpu is executing or holding
> onto the work.  So, yeah, as long as the limitations of flush_work()
> is understood, it's safe.
>

Sorry, I didn't see the for_each_cpu(cpu, cpu_map) part of
wait_on_work(). cancel_work_sync() does look safe as long as the work
has not moved to completely different workqueue.

> Going back to the original subject, just add simplistic outside
> locking in suspend_blocker_work API (or whatever other name you
> prefer).  That will be much cleaner and safer.  Let's think about
> moving them into workqueue implementation proper after the number of
> the API users grows to hundreds.
>

OK.

--
Arve Hjønnevåg