Re: [PATCH] workaround minor lockdep bug triggered by mm_take_all_locks

Andrew Morton
2008-08-04T21:42:38Z

On Mon, 4 Aug 2008 23:30:18 +0200
Andrea Arcangeli <andrea@qumranet.com> wrote:

> Now perhaps I misunderstood lockdep entirely

You did ;)

At runtime lockdep will "learn" the lock ordering rules, building a
graph in memory. If it ever sees the thus-learnt rules violated, it
will warn.

Simple example:

static DEFINE_MUTEX(a);
static DEFINE_MUTEX(b);

void f1(void)
{
mutex_lock(a);
mutex_lock(b);
}

void f2(void)
{
mutex_lock(b);
mutex_lock(a);
}

void doit(void)
{
f1();
f2();
}

lockdep will warn here about the ranking violation. As soon as it
occurs. Even though the system never deadlocked.

It's very very clever and powerful.