Re: [PATCH] make-cancel_rearming_delayed_work-reliable-fix

Jarek Poplawski
2007-05-08T13:01:33Z

On Tue, May 08, 2007 at 04:02:21PM +0400, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> On 05/08, Jarek Poplawski wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, May 07, 2007 at 02:34:20PM +0400, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> > > On 05/07, Jarek Poplawski wrote:
...
> I am strongly against adding many different variants of cancel_xxx().
> With this patch the API is simple
>
> - cancel_delayed_work() stops the timer
>
> - cancel_rearming_delayed_work() stops the timer and work,
> doesn't need cancel_work_sync/flush_workqueue

But most often there is a simple rearming (but not neccessarily
always) work for which the first is not enough and the second
an overkill (especially with system/workqueues loaded).

> When work->func() re-arms itself, both queue_work() and queue_delayed_work()
> may change CPU if CPU_DOWN_xxx happens. Note that this is possible
> even if we use freezer for cpu-hotplug, because the timer migrates to
> another CPU anyway.

Thanks for explanation - I try to think about this.

> > I'm not sure what exactly place
> > did you mean - if spinlocking in wait_on_work - maybe it's
> > a sign this place isn't optimal too: it seems to me, this all
> > inserting/waiting for completion could be done under existing
> > locks e.g. in run_workqueue (maybe with some flag?).
>
> Sorry, can't understand this. Inserting uses existing lock, namely
> cwq->lock.

I meant held locks - maybe e.g. after seeing some flag set (or some
other global/per_cpu/atomic/whatever variable) in a processed work
insert_wq_barrier could be done in already locked place. Or maybe
the whole idea of these completions should be rethinked, for
something lighter (i.e. lockless)?

>
> Just in case, I think wait_on_cpu_work() can check ->current_work without
> cwq->lock, but I am not sure yet. We can remove unneeded "new |= " from
> set_wq_data(), we can do a couple of other optimizations. However, there
> are already _a lot_ of workqueue changes in -mm tree. We can do this later.
> Right now my only concern is correctness.

I agree 100% - it's -mm, the old way is working, so why hurry?

Jarek P.