Re: [PATCH 07/10] block: reorganize throtl_get_tg() andblk_throtl_bio()

From: Vivek Goyal
Date: Wed Oct 19 2011 - 13:46:06 EST


On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 10:30:53AM -0700, Tejun Heo wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 01:19:17PM -0400, Vivek Goyal wrote:
> > > Currently, the code has different opportunistic checks which can catch
> > > most of those cases but unfortunatly I think it just makes the bugs
> > > more obscure.
> > >
> > > That said, we probably should be switching to internal lock once
> > > clenaup is complete.
> >
> > So even switching to internal lock is racy. Christoph suggeted to break down
> > this sharing of queue lock and driver lock and suggested always use
> > internal queue lock and modify drivers to use their own lock and manage it.
> > It makes sense though it might be lot of work to fix drivers.
>
> Hmmmm, yeah, right, switching itself would be racy. Maybe not sharing
> is the solution, I don't know. There's a way to make the switching
> safe tho. Sth like the following.
>
> lock_queue(q, flags)
> {
> spinlock_t *lock;
>
> local_irq_save(flags);
> lock = rcu_dereference_sched(q->queue_lock);
> spin_lock(lock);
> }
>
> and on cleanup, do synchronize_sched() after lock switching. But yeah
> it still stinks.

rcu protected spinlocks. Interesting. :-)

IIUC, it still leaves the window open that two callers think they have
the spinlock. One is holding the driver provided lock and other is holding
the queue private lock.

Thanks
Vivek
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