Re: [RFC PATCH 4/4] Fix: sched/membarrier: p->mm->membarrier_state racy load (v2)

[Linus Torvalds]

On Sun, Sep 8, 2019 at 6:49 AM Mathieu Desnoyers
<mathieu.desnoyers@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> +static void sync_runqueues_membarrier_state(struct mm_struct *mm)
> +{
> +       int membarrier_state = atomic_read(&mm->membarrier_state);
> +       bool fallback = false;
> +       cpumask_var_t tmpmask;
> +
> +       if (!zalloc_cpumask_var(&tmpmask, GFP_NOWAIT)) {
> +               /* Fallback for OOM. */
> +               fallback = true;
> +       }
> +
> +       /*
> +        * For each cpu runqueue, if the task's mm match @mm, ensure that all
> +        * @mm's membarrier state set bits are also set in in the runqueue's
> +        * membarrier state. This ensures that a runqueue scheduling
> +        * between threads which are users of @mm has its membarrier state
> +        * updated.
> +        */
> +       cpus_read_lock();
> +       rcu_read_lock();
> +       for_each_online_cpu(cpu) {
> +               struct rq *rq = cpu_rq(cpu);
> +               struct task_struct *p;
> +
> +               p = task_rcu_dereference(&rq->curr);
> +               if (p && p->mm == mm) {
> +                       if (!fallback)
> +                               __cpumask_set_cpu(cpu, tmpmask);
> +                       else
> +                               smp_call_function_single(cpu, ipi_sync_rq_state,
> +                                                        mm, 1);
> +               }
> +       }

I really absolutely detest this whole "fallback" code.

It will never get any real testing, and the code is just broken.

Why don't you just use the mm_cpumask(mm) unconditionally? Yes, it
will possibly call too many CPU's, but this fallback code is just
completely disgusting.

Do a simple and clean implementation. Then, if you can show real
performance issues (which I doubt), maybe do something else, but even
then you should never do something that will effectively create cases
that have absolutely zero test-coverage.

                      Linus