Re: [PATCH 1/2] signal: simplify deadlock-avoidance in lock_task_sighand()

From: Oleg Nesterov
Date: Tue Sep 23 2014 - 15:07:32 EST


On 09/22, Steven Rostedt wrote:
>
> On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 21:11:30 +0200
> Oleg Nesterov <oleg@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > > > @@ -1261,30 +1261,25 @@ struct sighand_struct *__lock_task_sighand(struct task_struct *tsk,
> > > > unsigned long *flags)
> > > > {
> > > > struct sighand_struct *sighand;
> > > > -
> > > > + /*
> > > > + * We are going to do rcu_read_unlock() under spin_lock_irqsave().
> > > > + * Make sure we can not be preempted after rcu_read_lock(), see
> > > > + * rcu_read_unlock() comment header for details.
> > > > + */
> > > > + preempt_disable();
> > >
> > > The sad part is, this is going to break -rt.
> >
> > Hmm, why??
>
> Because in -rt, siglock is a mutex.

Yes, thanks... I thougt that -rt should handle this somehow, we have
more examples of preempt_disable() + spin_lock().

OK, let's forger this patch. It was supposed to be a cleanup, it should
not disturb -rt.

> > In fact this deadlock is not really possible in any case, scheduler locks
> > should be fine under ->siglock (for example, signal_wake_up() is called
> > under this lock).
> >
> > But, the comment above rcu_read_unlock() says:
> >
> > Given that the set of locks acquired by rt_mutex_unlock() might change
> > at any time, a somewhat more future-proofed approach is to make sure
> > that that preemption never happens ...
>
> Hmm, I'm not sure we need to worry about this. As in -rt siglock is a
> mutex, which is rt_mutex() itself, I highly doubt we will have
> rt_mutex_unlock() grab siglock, otherwise that would cause havoc in -rt.

Yes. And, the changelog in a841796f "signal: align __lock_task_sighand() irq
disabling and RCU" says:

It is therefore possible that this RCU read-side critical
section will be preempted and later RCU priority boosted, which means
that rcu_read_unlock() will call rt_mutex_unlock() in order to deboost
itself, but with interrupts disabled. This results in lockdep splats
...
It is quite possible that a better long-term fix is to make rt_mutex_unlock()
disable irqs when acquiring the rt_mutex structure's ->wait_lock.

but this doesn't look right, raw_spin_lock(&lock->wait_lock) should be
fine with irqs disabled or I am totally confused. rt_mutex_adjust_prio()
does _irqsave/irqrestore, so this can't enable interrupts.

Paul, will you agree if we turn it into

struct sighand_struct *__lock_task_sighand(struct task_struct *tsk,
unsigned long *flags)
{
struct sighand_struct *sighand;

rcu_read_lock();
for (;;) {
sighand = rcu_dereference(tsk->sighand);
if (unlikely(sighand == NULL))
break;

spin_lock_irqsave(&sighand->siglock, *flags);
if (likely(sighand == tsk->sighand))
break;
spin_unlock_irqrestore(&sighand->siglock, *flags);
}
/*
* On the succesfull return we hold ->siglock. According to comment
* above rcu_read_unlock() this is against the rules, but scheduler
* locks are fine under this lock, signal_wake_up() takes them too.
*/
rcu_read_unlock();

return sighand;
}

?

Or I can leave this code alone, this is the minor cleanup. Just to me this
sequence

local_irq_save();
rcu_read_lock();
spin_lock();

looks a bit confusing/annoying even with the comment.

Oleg.

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