Re: [PATCH tip/core/rcu 0/41] More RCU flavor consolidation cleanup for v4.21/v5.0

Paul E. McKenney
2018-11-12T22:16:48Z

On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 04:40:23PM -0500, Sasha Levin wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 08:01:37AM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> >On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 09:07:50AM -0500, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> >>----- On Nov 11, 2018, at 2:41 PM, paulmck paulmck@linux.ibm.com wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hello!
> >>>
> >>> This series does additional cleanup for the RCU flavor consolidation,
> >>> focusing primarily on uses of old API members, for example, so that
> >>> call_rcu_bh() becomes call_rcu(). There are also a few straggling
> >>> internal-to-RCU cleanups.
> >>>
> >>> 1. Remove unused rcu_state externs, courtesy of Joel Fernandes.
> >>>
> >>> 2. Fix rcu_{node,data} comments about gp_seq_needed, courtesy of
> >>> Joel Fernandes.
> >>>
> >>> 3. Eliminate synchronize_rcu_mult() and its sole caller.
> >>>
> >>> 4. Consolidate the RCU update functions invoked by sync.c.
> >>>
> >>> 5-41. Replace old flavorful RCU API calls with the corresponding
> >>> vanilla calls.
> >>
> >>Hi Paul,
> >>
> >>Just a heads up: we might want to spell out warnings in very big letters
> >>for anyone trying to backport code using RCU from post-4.21 kernels
> >>back to older kernels. I fear that newer code will build just fine
> >>on older kernels, but will spectacularly fail in hard-to-debug ways at
> >>runtime.
> >>
> >>Renaming synchronize_rcu() and call_rcu() to something that did not
> >>exist in prior kernels would prevent that. It may not be as pretty
> >>though.
> >
> >From v4.20 rather than v4.21, but yes. Would it make sense to have Sasha
> >automatically flag -stable candidates going back past that boundary that
> >contain call_rcu(), synchronize_rcu(), etc.? Adding Sasha on CC, and
> >I might be able to touch base with him this week.
>
> We had a similar issue recently with a vfs change
> (https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/10604339/) leading to potentially
> the same results as described above, we took it as is to avoid these
> issues in the future, though this is a much smaller change than what's
> proposed here.
>
> We can look into an good way to solve this. While I can alert on
> post-4.20 stable tagged patches that touch rcu, do you really want to be
> dealing with this for the next 10+ years? It'll also means each of those
> patches will need a manual backport.
>
> Let's talk at Plumbers :)

Sounds like a plan! ;-)

Thanx, Paul