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From: Michal Blaszczyk <michalblk@google.com>
To: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>, Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>,
	 David Vernet <void@manifault.com>,
	Andrea Righi <arighi@nvidia.com>,
	 Changwoo Min <changwoo@igalia.com>
Cc: Michal Blaszczyk <michalblk@google.com>,
	Kuba Piecuch <jpiecuch@google.com>,
	sched-ext@lists.linux.dev,  linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH] sched: Serialize cgroup updates to prevent CFS/SCX state divergence
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:09:56 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260820160956.910663-1-michalblk@google.com> (raw)

Concurrent writes to cgroup control files (such as cpu.shares or
cpu.weight) can lead to state divergence between CFS and SCX.

For instance, in cpu_shares_write_u64(), the CFS update is serialized
by shares_mutex (internal to fair.c), but this lock is dropped before
scx_group_set_weight() is called. The latter only acquires a read
semaphore (scx_cgroup_ops_rwsem), allowing multiple threads to evaluate
and act on the sched_ext update concurrently.

This serialization gap allows concurrent writes to interleave.
As a result, the recorded state in CFS, the SCX internal bookkeeping
(e.g., tg->scx.weight), and the BPF scheduler itself can end up operating
on completely distinct parameters (pairwise distinct values).

Similar races are present in tg_set_bandwidth(), cpu_idle_write_s64(),
cpu_weight_write_u64(), and cpu_weight_nice_write_s64().

Fix this by introducing scx_cgroup_mutex in kernel/sched/core.c to
serialize these file write operations.

Fixes: 819513666966 ("sched_ext: Add cgroup support")
Signed-off-by: Michal Blaszczyk <michalblk@google.com>
---
 kernel/sched/core.c | 21 +++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 21 insertions(+)

diff --git a/kernel/sched/core.c b/kernel/sched/core.c
index f5f7ff8c680a..e3e84f7b9da9 100644
--- a/kernel/sched/core.c
+++ b/kernel/sched/core.c
@@ -9789,6 +9789,11 @@ static unsigned long tg_weight(struct task_group *tg)
 #endif
 }
 
+/* Serializes concurrent cgroup updates to keep CFS and SCX state consistent */
+#ifdef CONFIG_EXT_GROUP_SCHED
+static DEFINE_MUTEX(scx_cgroup_mutex);
+#endif
+
 static int cpu_shares_write_u64(struct cgroup_subsys_state *css,
 				struct cftype *cftype, u64 shareval)
 {
@@ -9796,6 +9801,10 @@ static int cpu_shares_write_u64(struct cgroup_subsys_state *css,
 
 	if (shareval > scale_load_down(ULONG_MAX))
 		shareval = MAX_SHARES;
+
+#ifdef CONFIG_EXT_GROUP_SCHED
+	guard(mutex)(&scx_cgroup_mutex);
+#endif
 	ret = sched_group_set_shares(css_tg(css), scale_load(shareval));
 	if (!ret)
 		scx_group_set_weight(css_tg(css),
@@ -10131,6 +10140,9 @@ static int tg_set_bandwidth(struct task_group *tg,
 					burst_us + quota_us > max_bw_runtime_us))
 		return -EINVAL;
 
+#ifdef CONFIG_EXT_GROUP_SCHED
+	guard(mutex)(&scx_cgroup_mutex);
+#endif
 #ifdef CONFIG_CFS_BANDWIDTH
 	ret = tg_set_cfs_bandwidth(tg, period_us, quota_us, burst_us);
 #endif /* CONFIG_CFS_BANDWIDTH */
@@ -10229,6 +10241,9 @@ static int cpu_idle_write_s64(struct cgroup_subsys_state *css,
 {
 	int ret;
 
+#ifdef CONFIG_EXT_GROUP_SCHED
+	guard(mutex)(&scx_cgroup_mutex);
+#endif
 	ret = sched_group_set_idle(css_tg(css), idle);
 	if (!ret)
 		scx_group_set_idle(css_tg(css), idle);
@@ -10405,6 +10420,9 @@ static int cpu_weight_write_u64(struct cgroup_subsys_state *css,
 
 	weight = sched_weight_from_cgroup(cgrp_weight);
 
+#ifdef CONFIG_EXT_GROUP_SCHED
+	guard(mutex)(&scx_cgroup_mutex);
+#endif
 	ret = sched_group_set_shares(css_tg(css), scale_load(weight));
 	if (!ret)
 		scx_group_set_weight(css_tg(css), cgrp_weight);
@@ -10442,6 +10460,9 @@ static int cpu_weight_nice_write_s64(struct cgroup_subsys_state *css,
 	idx = array_index_nospec(idx, 40);
 	weight = sched_prio_to_weight[idx];
 
+#ifdef CONFIG_EXT_GROUP_SCHED
+	guard(mutex)(&scx_cgroup_mutex);
+#endif
 	ret = sched_group_set_shares(css_tg(css), scale_load(weight));
 	if (!ret)
 		scx_group_set_weight(css_tg(css),
-- 
2.55.0.737.g08866a6d13-goog


             reply	other threads:[~2026-08-20 16:10 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 5+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-08-20 16:09 Michal Blaszczyk [this message]
2026-08-20 17:21 ` [PATCH] sched: Serialize cgroup updates to prevent CFS/SCX state divergence Tejun Heo
2026-08-21  7:26   ` Peter Zijlstra
2026-08-21 14:08 ` [PATCH v2] sched: Lift cgroup update locking to core to prevent CFS/SCX divergence Michal Blaszczyk
2026-08-21 19:08   ` Tejun Heo

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