[PATCH v4 3/3] perf lock contention: Fix SIGCHLD vs pause() race in __cmd_contention()

From: Swapnil Sapkal

Date: Wed May 20 2026 - 06:31:12 EST


__cmd_contention() suffers from the same lost-wakeup race as the perf
sched stats paths: SIGCHLD can be consumed by the signal handler
before pause() is entered, hanging the process.

Apply the same fix: replace pause() with a loop checking the 'done'
flag and using waitpid(WNOHANG) for the workload case.

Suggested-by: Namhyung Kim <namhyung@xxxxxxxxxx>
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4.6
Signed-off-by: Swapnil Sapkal <swapnil.sapkal@xxxxxxx>
---
tools/perf/builtin-lock.c | 12 ++++++++++--
1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/tools/perf/builtin-lock.c b/tools/perf/builtin-lock.c
index 5585aeb97684..e1c033e3a8d5 100644
--- a/tools/perf/builtin-lock.c
+++ b/tools/perf/builtin-lock.c
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/prctl.h>
+#include <sys/wait.h>
#include <semaphore.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <limits.h>
@@ -1921,8 +1922,11 @@ static int __cmd_report(bool display_info)
return err;
}

+static volatile sig_atomic_t done;
+
static void sighandler(int sig __maybe_unused)
{
+ done = 1;
}

static int check_lock_contention_options(const struct option *options,
@@ -2060,6 +2064,7 @@ static int __cmd_contention(int argc, const char **argv)
goto out_delete;
}

+ done = 0;
signal(SIGINT, sighandler);
signal(SIGCHLD, sighandler);
signal(SIGTERM, sighandler);
@@ -2127,8 +2132,11 @@ static int __cmd_contention(int argc, const char **argv)
if (argc)
evlist__start_workload(con.evlist);

- /* wait for signal */
- pause();
+ while (!done) {
+ if (argc && waitpid(con.evlist->workload.pid, NULL, WNOHANG) > 0)
+ break;
+ sleep(1);
+ }

lock_contention_stop();
lock_contention_read(&con);
--
2.43.0