Re: [PATCH] kernel: fix data race in put_pid

[Dmitry Vyukov]

On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 3:44 PM, Oleg Nesterov <oleg@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 09/18, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
>>
>> Provide atomic_read_ctrl() to mirror READ_ONCE_CTRL(), such that we can
>> more conveniently use atomics in control dependencies.
>>
>> Since we can assume atomic_read() implies a READ_ONCE(), we must only
>> emit an extra smp_read_barrier_depends() in order to upgrade to
>> READ_ONCE_CTRL() semantics.
>
> ...
>
>> +static inline int atomic_read_ctrl(atomic_t *v)
>> +{
>> +     int val = atomic_read(v);
>> +     smp_read_barrier_depends(); /* Enforce control dependency. */
>> +     return val;
>> +}
>
> Help. I am starting to think that the control dependencies is even more
> hard to understand that memory barriers...
>
> So I assume that if we have
>
>         int X = 0;
>         atomic_t Y = ATOMIC_INIT(0);
>
>         void w(void)
>         {
>                 X = 1;
>                 atomic_inc_return(&Y);
>         }
>
> then
>
>         void r(void)
>         {
>                 if (atomic_read_ctrl(&Y))
>                         BUG_ON(X == 0);
>         }
>
> should be correct?  Why?
>
> If not then I am even more confused.

This not correct, because "ctrl" barrier affects only
control-dependent stores. For reads processor still can speculate,
that is, speculatively load X before loading Y. Control-dependent
require full read/acquire memory barrier.
What will work is:

// thread 1
                 X = 1;
                 atomic_inc_return(&Y);

// thread 2
                 if (atomic_read_ctrl(&Y)) {
                         X = 2;
                         BUG_ON(X == 2);
                  }

Without the "ctrl" barrier store X=2 could hoist above load of Y (on
Alpha), and then X=1 can happen _after_ X=2, and then BUG_ON could
fail.
With the "ctrl" barrier store X=2 is not allowed to hoist above load of Y.


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Dmitry Vyukov, Software Engineer, dvyukov@xxxxxxxxxx
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