Re: [PATCH 3/3] introduce task_rcu_dereference()

[Peter Zijlstra]

So I keep coming back to this, and every time I look at it my brain
explodes.

On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 08:54:46PM +0100, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> +struct task_struct *task_rcu_dereference(struct task_struct **ptask)
> +{
> +	struct task_struct *task;
> +	struct sighand_struct *sighand;

I think that needs: ' = NULL', because if

> +
> +	/*
> +	 * We need to verify that release_task() was not called and thus
> +	 * delayed_put_task_struct() can't run and drop the last reference
> +	 * before rcu_read_unlock(). We check task->sighand != NULL, but
> +	 * we can read the already freed and reused memory.
> +	 */
> + retry:
> +	task = rcu_dereference(*ptask);
> +	if (!task)
> +		return NULL;
> +
> +	probe_slab_address(&task->sighand, sighand);

this fails because of DEBUG_PAGE_ALLOC, we might not write to sighand at
all, and

> +	/*
> +	 * Pairs with atomic_dec_and_test(usage) in put_task_struct(task).
> +	 * If this task was already freed we can not miss the preceding
> +	 * update of this pointer.
> +	 */
> +	smp_rmb();
> +	if (unlikely(task != ACCESS_ONCE(*ptask)))
> +		goto retry;
> +
> +	/*
> +	 * Either this is the same task and we can trust sighand != NULL, or
> +	 * its memory was re-instantiated as another instance of task_struct.
> +	 * In the latter case the new task can not go away until another rcu
> +	 * gp pass, so the only problem is that sighand == NULL can be false
> +	 * positive but we can pretend we got this NULL before it was freed.
> +	 */
> +	if (sighand)

this will be inspecting random values on the stack.

> +		return task;
> +
> +	/*
> +	 * We could even eliminate the false positive mentioned above:
> +	 *
> +	 *	probe_slab_address(&task->sighand, sighand);
> +	 *	if (sighand)
> +	 *		goto retry;
> +	 *
> +	 * if sighand != NULL because we read the freed memory we should
> +	 * see the new pointer, otherwise we will likely return this task.
> +	 */
> +	return NULL;
> +}

This thing does more than rcu_dereference; because it also guarantees
that task->usage > 0 for the entire RCU section you do this under.
Because delayed_put_task_struct() will be delayed until at least the
matching rcu_read_unlock().


Should we instead create a primitive like try_get_task_struct() which
returns true if it got a reference? Because that is typically what
people end up doing..

A little like so?

---
 include/linux/sched.h |  2 ++
 kernel/exit.c         | 46 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 kernel/sched/fair.c   | 29 +++++++----------------------
 3 files changed, 55 insertions(+), 22 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/sched.h b/include/linux/sched.h
index 38526b67e787..b2baa4af04e1 100644
--- a/include/linux/sched.h
+++ b/include/linux/sched.h
@@ -2132,6 +2132,8 @@ static inline void put_task_struct(struct task_struct *t)
 		__put_task_struct(t);
 }
 
+struct task_struct *try_get_task_struct(struct task_struct **ptask);
+
 #ifdef CONFIG_VIRT_CPU_ACCOUNTING_GEN
 extern void task_cputime(struct task_struct *t,
 			 cputime_t *utime, cputime_t *stime);
diff --git a/kernel/exit.c b/kernel/exit.c
index fd90195667e1..a1670dfd587b 100644
--- a/kernel/exit.c
+++ b/kernel/exit.c
@@ -210,6 +210,52 @@ void release_task(struct task_struct *p)
 		goto repeat;
 }
 
+struct task_struct *try_get_task_struct(struct task_struct **ptask)
+{
+	struct sighand_struct *sighand = NULL;
+	struct task_struct *task = NULL;
+
+	rcu_read_lock();
+	/*
+	 * We need to verify that release_task() was not called and thus
+	 * delayed_put_task_struct() can't run and drop the last reference
+	 * before rcu_read_unlock(). We check task->sighand != NULL,
+	 * but we can read the already freed and reused memory.
+	 */
+retry:
+	task = rcu_dereference(*ptask);
+	if (!task)
+		goto unlock;
+
+	probe_kernel_address(&task->sighand, sighand);
+
+	/*
+	 * Pairs with atomic_dec_and_test() in put_task_struct(). If this task
+	 * was already freed we can not miss the preceding update of this
+	 * pointer.
+	 */
+	if (unlikely(task != READ_ONCE(*ptask)))
+		goto retry;
+
+	/*
+	 * Either this is the same task and we can trust sighand != NULL, or
+	 * its memory was re-instantiated as another instrance of task_struct.
+	 * In the latter case the new task can not go away until another RCU
+	 * GP pass, so the only problem is that sighand == NULL can be a false
+	 * positive, but we can pretend we got this NULL before it was freed.
+	 */
+	if (!sighand) {
+		task = NULL;
+		goto unlock;
+	}
+
+	get_task_struct(task);
+
+unlock:
+	rcu_read_unlock();
+	return task;
+}
+
 /*
  * Determine if a process group is "orphaned", according to the POSIX
  * definition in 2.2.2.52.  Orphaned process groups are not to be affected
diff --git a/kernel/sched/fair.c b/kernel/sched/fair.c
index 218f8e83db73..1d3a410c481b 100644
--- a/kernel/sched/fair.c
+++ b/kernel/sched/fair.c
@@ -1374,30 +1374,15 @@ static void task_numa_compare(struct task_numa_env *env,
 	int dist = env->dist;
 	bool assigned = false;
 
-	rcu_read_lock();
-
-	raw_spin_lock_irq(&dst_rq->lock);
-	cur = dst_rq->curr;
-	/*
-	 * No need to move the exiting task or idle task.
-	 */
-	if ((cur->flags & PF_EXITING) || is_idle_task(cur))
-		cur = NULL;
-	else {
-		/*
-		 * The task_struct must be protected here to protect the
-		 * p->numa_faults access in the task_weight since the
-		 * numa_faults could already be freed in the following path:
-		 * finish_task_switch()
-		 *     --> put_task_struct()
-		 *         --> __put_task_struct()
-		 *             --> task_numa_free()
-		 */
-		get_task_struct(cur);
+	cur = try_get_task_struct(&dst_rq->curr);
+	if (cur) {
+		if ((cur->flags & PF_EXITING) || is_idle_task(cur)) {
+			put_task_struct(cur);
+			cur = NULL;
+		}
 	}
 
-	raw_spin_unlock_irq(&dst_rq->lock);
-
+	rcu_read_lock();
 	/*
 	 * Because we have preemption enabled we can get migrated around and
 	 * end try selecting ourselves (current == env->p) as a swap candidate.