Re: safety of *mutex_unlock() (Was: [BUG] signal: sighand unprotected when accessed by /proc)

Paul E. McKenney
2014-06-12T22:27:54Z

On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 11:40:07PM +0200, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
> On Thu, 12 Jun 2014, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 07:28:44PM +0200, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> > > On 06/11, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 07:59:34PM +0200, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> > > > > On 06/11, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I was thinking of ->boost_completion as the way to solve it easily, but
> > > > > > what did you have in mind?
> > > > >
> > > > > I meant, rcu_boost() could probably just do "mtx->owner = t", we know that
> > > > > it was unlocked by us and nobody else can use it until we set
> > > > > t->rcu_boost_mutex.
> > > >
> > > > My concern with this is that rcu_read_unlock_special() could hypothetically
> > > > get preempted (either by kernel or hypervisor), so that it might be a long
> > > > time until it makes its reference. But maybe that reference would be
> > > > harmless in this case.
> > >
> > > Confused... Not sure I understand what did you mean, and certainly I do not
> > > understand how this connects to the proxy-locking method.
> > >
> > > Could you explain?
> >
> > Here is the hypothetical sequence of events, which cannot happen unless
> > the CPU releasing the lock accesses the structure after releasing
> > the lock:
> >
> > CPU 0 CPU 1 (booster)
> >
> > releases boost_mutex
> >
> > acquires boost_mutex
> > releases boost_mutex
> > post-release boost_mutex access?
> > Loops to next task to boost
> > proxy-locks boost_mutex
> >
> > post-release boost_mutex access:
> > confused due to proxy-lock
> > operation?
> >
> > Now maybe this ends up being safe, but it sure feels like an accident
> > waiting to happen. Some bright developer comes up with a super-fast
> > handoff, and blam, RCU priority boosting takes it in the shorts. ;-)
> > In contrast, using the completion prevents this.
> >
> > > > > And if we move it into rcu_node, then we can probably kill ->rcu_boost_mutex,
> > > > > rcu_read_unlock_special() could check rnp->boost_mutex->owner == current.
> > > >
> > > > If this was anywhere near a hot code path, I would be sorely tempted.
> > >
> > > Ah, but I didn't mean perfomance. I think it is always good to try to remove
> > > something from task_struct, it is huge. I do not mean sizeof() in the first
> > > place, the very fact that I can hardly understand the purpose of a half of its
> > > members makes me sad ;)
> >
> > Now -that- just might make a huge amount of sense! Let's see...
> >
> > o We hold the rcu_node structure's ->lock when checking the owner
> > (looks like rt_mutex_owner() is the right API).
> >
> > o We hold the rcu_node structure's ->lock when doing
> > rt_mutex_init_proxy_locked().
> >
> > o We -don't- hold ->lock when releasing the rt_mutex, but that
> > should be OK: The owner is releasing it, and it is going to
> > not-owned, so no other task can possibly see ownership moving
> > to/from them.
> >
> > o The rcu_node structure grows a bit, but not enough to worry
> > about, and on most systems, the decrease in task_struct size
> > will more than outweigh the increase in rcu_node size.
> >
> > Looks quite promising, how about the following? (Hey, it builds, so it
> > must be correct, right?)
>
> True. Why should we have users if we would test the crap we produce?

Well, it seems to be passing initial tests as well. Must be my tests
need more work.

> Just FYI, I have a patch pending which makes the release safe.
>
> http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=140251240630730&w=2

Very good, belt -and- suspenders! Might even work that way. ;-)

I could argue for a cpu_relax() in the "while (!rt_mutex_has_waiters(lock))"
loop for the case in which the CPU enqueuing itself is preempted, possibly
by a hypervisor, but either way:

Acked-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>

Thanx, Paul