[rfc] "improve" preempt debugging

From: Nick Piggin
Date: Tue Sep 30 2008 - 06:50:47 EST


Hi, don't know if you really like this patch or not, but it helped me out with
a problem I recently had....

Basically, when the kernel lock is held, then preempt_count underflow does not
get detected until it is released which may be a long time (and arbitrarily,
eg at different points it may be rescheduled). If the bkl is released at
schedule, the resulting output is actually fairly cryptic...

With any other lock that elevates preempt_count, it is illegal to schedule
under it (which would get found pretty quickly). bkl allows scheduling with
preempt_count elevated, which makes underflows hard to debug.

Index: linux-2.6/kernel/sched.c
===================================================================
--- linux-2.6.orig/kernel/sched.c 2008-09-30 11:32:56.000000000 +1000
+++ linux-2.6/kernel/sched.c 2008-09-30 11:38:18.000000000 +1000
@@ -4305,7 +4305,7 @@ void __kprobes sub_preempt_count(int val
/*
* Underflow?
*/
- if (DEBUG_LOCKS_WARN_ON(val > preempt_count()))
+ if (DEBUG_LOCKS_WARN_ON(val > preempt_count() - (!!kernel_locked())))
return;
/*
* Is the spinlock portion underflowing?
--
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