Re: [PATCH 3/3] eventfd: add internal reference counting to fix notifier race conditions

Gregory Haskins
2009-06-21T01:05:46Z

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Davide Libenzi wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Jun 2009, Gregory Haskins wrote:
>
>
>>> In the POLLIN event, you schedule_work(&irqfd->inject) and there are no
>>> races there AFAICS (you basically do not care of anything eventfd memory
>>> related at all).
>>> For POLLHUP, you do:
>>>
>>> spin_lock(irqfd->slock);
>>> if (irqfd->wqh)
>>> schedule_work(&irqfd->inject);
>>> irqfd->wqh = NULL;
>>> spin_unlock(irqfd->slock);
>>>
>>> In your work function you notice the POLLHUP condition and take proper
>>> action (dunno what it is in your case).
>>> In your kvm_irqfd_release() function:
>>>
>>> spin_lock(irqfd->slock);
>>> if (irqfd->wqh)
>>> remove_wait_queue(irqfd->wqh, &irqfd->wait);
>>> irqfd->wqh = NULL;
>>> spin_unlock(irqfd->slock);
>>>
>>> Any races in there?
>>>
>>>
>> Yes, for one you have an ABBA deadlock on the irqfd->slock and wqh->lock
>> (recall wqh has to be locked to fix that other race I mentioned).
>>
>
> Yep, true. How about we go in little steps?
> How about the one below?
> When you register your poll callback, you get a reference with
> eventfd_refget().
>

I was thinking about this last night/this morning and that was
essentially what I was going to propose next as a more palatable+simpler
solution.

> At that point we have no more worries about the eventfd memory (namely
> "wqh") going away.
> Symmetrically, you use eventfd_refput() once you done with it.
> So we basically de-couple the internal VFS refcount, from the eventfd
> context memory refcount.
> Where are the non-solveable races on the IRQfd side, of an approach like
> this one?
>
None... I think that can work. The core requirements boil down to: 1)
locking the POLLHUP (as we already discussed), and 2) holding a kref (or
equivelent) to the eventfd_ctx that the client can release once they are
fully out. After that, it looks like any vanilla wait-queue in the kernel.

>
>
>
>> Yes, understood. What I was trying to gently say is that the one-liner
>> proposal alone is still broken afaict. However, if there is another
>> solution that works that you like better than 133-liner I posted, I am
>> more than willing to help analyze it. In the end, I only care that this
>> is fixed.
>>
>
> Is it so?
> What I noticed here, is that you went from "Detailed Mode" (in the emails
> where you were pushing the new bits), to "Hint Mode" (as below) when it
> was time to see if there were simpler solutions to the problem.
>

I wasn't being purposely coy. It was late friday and I was getting
pressure from the wife to get off the computer ;) Plus, all the details
were in my patch, so I figured there wasn't a giant need to rehash since
it could just be gleened. In any case, based on this current reply I
think we are on the same page now.

>
>> (As a hint, I think I fixed 4-5 races with these patches, so there are a
>> few others still lurking as well)
>>
>
> Not knowing the details of IRQfd, hinting only is not going to help
> anything in this case.
>
>
>
> - Davide
>
>
>
> ---
> fs/eventfd.c | 37 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
> include/linux/eventfd.h | 6 ++++++
> 2 files changed, 42 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>

I haven't had a chance to go over the patch below in detail, but the
30,000 foot view is that it is in line with what I was thinking this
morning. So, its a preliminary "looks good". I'll take a closer look ASAP

Thanks Davide,
-Greg

> Index: linux-2.6.mod/fs/eventfd.c
> ===================================================================
> --- linux-2.6.mod.orig/fs/eventfd.c 2009-06-20 13:08:22.000000000 -0700
> +++ linux-2.6.mod/fs/eventfd.c 2009-06-20 14:00:23.000000000 -0700
> @@ -17,8 +17,10 @@
> #include <linux/eventfd.h>
> #include <linux/syscalls.h>
> #include <linux/module.h>
> +#include <linux/kref.h>
>
> struct eventfd_ctx {
> + struct kref kref;
> wait_queue_head_t wqh;
> /*
> * Every time that a write(2) is performed on an eventfd, the
> @@ -59,9 +61,19 @@ int eventfd_signal(struct file *file, in
> }
> EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(eventfd_signal);
>
> +static void eventfd_free(struct kref *kref)
> +{
> + struct eventfd_ctx *ctx = container_of(kref, struct eventfd_ctx, kref);
> +
> + kfree(ctx);
> +}
> +
> static int eventfd_release(struct inode *inode, struct file *file)
> {
> - kfree(file->private_data);
> + struct eventfd_ctx *ctx = file->private_data;
> +
> + wake_up_poll(&ctx->wqh, POLLHUP);
> + kref_put(&ctx->kref, eventfd_free);
> return 0;
> }
>
> @@ -201,6 +213,28 @@ struct file *eventfd_fget(int fd)
> }
> EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(eventfd_fget);
>
> +int eventfd_refget(struct file *file)
> +{
> + struct eventfd_ctx *ctx = file->private_data;
> +
> + if (file->f_op != &eventfd_fops)
> + return -EINVAL;
> + kref_get(&ctx->kref);
> + return 0;
> +}
> +EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(eventfd_refget);
> +
> +int eventfd_refput(struct file *file)
> +{
> + struct eventfd_ctx *ctx = file->private_data;
> +
> + if (file->f_op != &eventfd_fops)
> + return -EINVAL;
> + kref_put(&ctx->kref, eventfd_free);
> + return 0;
> +}
> +EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(eventfd_refput);
> +
> SYSCALL_DEFINE2(eventfd2, unsigned int, count, int, flags)
> {
> int fd;
> @@ -217,6 +251,7 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE2(eventfd2, unsigned int,
> if (!ctx)
> return -ENOMEM;
>
> + kref_init(&ctx->kref);
> init_waitqueue_head(&ctx->wqh);
> ctx->count = count;
> ctx->flags = flags;
> Index: linux-2.6.mod/include/linux/eventfd.h
> ===================================================================
> --- linux-2.6.mod.orig/include/linux/eventfd.h 2009-06-20 13:08:22.000000000 -0700
> +++ linux-2.6.mod/include/linux/eventfd.h 2009-06-20 13:59:09.000000000 -0700
> @@ -29,12 +29,18 @@
>
> struct file *eventfd_fget(int fd);
> int eventfd_signal(struct file *file, int n);
> +int eventfd_refget(struct file *file);
> +int eventfd_refput(struct file *file);
>
> #else /* CONFIG_EVENTFD */
>
> #define eventfd_fget(fd) ERR_PTR(-ENOSYS)
> static inline int eventfd_signal(struct file *file, int n)
> { return 0; }
> +static inline int eventfd_refget(struct file *file)
> +{ return -ENOSYS; }
> +static inline int eventfd_refput(struct file *file)
> +{ return -ENOSYS; }
>
> #endif /* CONFIG_EVENTFD */
>
>

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