Re: [PATCH] futex: bugfix for robust futex deadlock when waking onlyone thread in handle_futex_death

From: Darren Hart
Date: Thu Apr 18 2013 - 10:54:37 EST




On 04/17/2013 06:47 PM, zhang.yi20@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>
> Darren Hart <dvhart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote on 2013/04/18 03:42:07:
>
>>
>>
>> On 04/17/2013 03:40 AM, zhang.yi20@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> > Darren Hart <dvhart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote on 2013/04/17 01:05:28:
>> >
>> >
>> >>
>> >> Performance isn't an issue here as this is an error path. The question
>> >> is if the
>> >> changed behavior will constitute a problem for existing applications.
>> > Rather
>> >> than a serialized cascading wake, we have them all wake at once. If an
>> >> application depended on the first waker after owner death to do some
>> > cleanup
>> >> before the rest came along, I could imagine some potential for failure
>> >> there.
>> >>
>> >
>> > I don't find out there are any APIs can wake all waiters at once, so still
>> > use futex_wake.
>> > When waiter return form futex_wait syscall, glibc check the futex's value
>> > and try to modify it by using atomic instructions, and let the waiter
>> > return only if successed.
>> > The applications which not use the glibc's library should follow this.
>>
>> Indeed they *should*. :-)
>>
>> >
>> >> One possible alternative would be to wake waiters for a different
>> >> process group
>> >> when OWNER_DEAD is set, and leave it as a single wake.
>> >>
>> >
>> > To wake one waiter of other process cannot slove this problem , because it
>> > can be exiting too.
>>
>> If I understood the point of your change, it was to ensure all tasks
>> would be woken because tasks that were exiting wouldn't propogate the
>> wake. If there are nothing but exiting tasks available.... does it even
>> matter?
>>
>
> I mean that there may be some processes (more than 2) waitting for the
> lock, we can't choose the one which is exiting or it will exit later.
> It's difficult to accomplish this.
>

"or it will exit later" .... I don't follow you there, it sounds like
you are saying if we try to wake the exiting process, that process will
be delayed and take longer to exit.... I don't think that is what you
meant. Can you elaborate please?

--
Darren Hart
Intel Open Source Technology Center
Yocto Project - Technical Lead - Linux Kernel
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