RE: [PATCH 1/3] hv_utils: Add the support of hibernation

[Vitaly Kuznetsov]

Dexuan Cui <decui@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

>> From: Vitaly Kuznetsov <vkuznets@xxxxxxxxxx>
>> Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2019 9:37 AM
>
>> > +static int util_suspend(struct hv_device *dev)
>> > +{
>> > +	struct hv_util_service *srv = hv_get_drvdata(dev);
>> > +
>> > +	if (srv->util_cancel_work)
>> > +		srv->util_cancel_work();
>> > +
>> > +	vmbus_close(dev->channel);
>> 
>> And what happens if you receive a real reply from userspace after you
>> close the channel? You've only cancelled timeout work so the driver
>> will not try to reply by itself but this doesn't mean we won't try to
>> write to the channel on legitimate replies from daemons.
>> 
>> I think you need to block all userspace requests (hang in kernel until
>> util_resume()).
>> 
>> While I'm not sure we can't get away without it but I'd suggest we add a
>> new HVUTIL_SUSPENDED state to the hvutil state machine.
>> Vitaly
>
> When we reach util_suspend(), all the userspace processes have been
> frozen: see kernel/power/hibernate.c: hibernate() -> freeze_processes(),
> so here we can not receive a reply from the userspace daemon.
>

Let's add a WARN() or something then as if this ever happens this is
going to be realy tricky to catch.

> However, it looks there is indeed some tricky corner cases we need to deal
> with: in util_resume(), before we call vmbus_open(), all the userspace
> processes are still frozen, and the userspace daemon (e.g. hv_kvp_daemon) 
> can be in any of these states:
>
> 1. the driver has not buffered any message for the daemon. This is good.
>
> 2. the driver has buffered a message for the daemon, and
> kvp_transaction.state is HVUTIL_USERSPACE_REQ. Later, the kvp daemon
> writes the response to the driver, and in kvp_on_msg() 
> kvp_transaction.state is moved to HVUTIL_USERSPACE_RECV, but since
> cancel_delayed_work_sync(&kvp_timeout_work) is false (the work has
> been cancelled by util_suspend()), the driver reports nothing to the host,
> which is good as the VM has undergone a hibernation event and IMO the
> response may be stale and I believe the host is not expecting this 
> response from the VM at all (the host side application that requested the
> KVP must have failed or timed out), but the bad thing is: the "state"
> remains in HVUTIL_USERSPACE_RECV, preventing
> hv_kvp_onchannelcallback() from reading from the channel ringbuffer.
>
> I suggest we work around this race condition by the below patch:
>
> --- a/drivers/hv/hv_kvp.c
> +++ b/drivers/hv/hv_kvp.c
> @@ -250,8 +250,8 @@ static int kvp_on_msg(void *msg, int len)
>          */
>         if (cancel_delayed_work_sync(&kvp_timeout_work)) {
>                 kvp_respond_to_host(message, error);
> -               hv_poll_channel(kvp_transaction.recv_channel, kvp_poll_wrapper);
>         }
> +       hv_poll_channel(kvp_transaction.recv_channel, kvp_poll_wrapper);
>
>         return 0;
>  }
>
> How do you like this?
>

Is it safe to call hv_poll_channel() simultaneously on several CPUs? It
seems it is as we're doing 

smp_call_function_single(channel->target_cpu, cb, channel, true);

(I'm asking because if it's not, than doing what you suggest will open
the following window: timeout function kvp_timeout_func() is already
running but the daemon is trying to reply at the same moment).

> I can imagine there is still a small chance that the state machine can run
> out of order, and the kvp daemon may exit due to the return values of
> read()/write() being -EINVAL, but the chance should be small enough in
> practice, and IMO the issue even exists in the current code when
> hibernation is not involved, e.g. kvp_timeout_func() and kvp_on_msg() 
> can run concurrently; if kvp_on_msg() runs slowly due to some reason 
> (e.g. the kvp daemon is stopped as I'm gdb'ing it), kvp_timeout_func()
> fires and moves the state to HVUTIL_READY; later kvp_on_msg() starts
> to run and returns -EINVAL, and the kvp daemon will exit().
>
> IMHO here it looks extremely difficult to make things flawless (if that's
> even possible), so it's necessary to ask the daemons to auto-restart once
> they exit() unexpectedly. This can be achieved by configuring systemd
> properly for the kvp/vss/fcopy services. 

I think we can also teach daemons to ignore -EINVAL or switch to
something like -EAGAIN in non-fatal cases.
 
>
> I'm not sure introducing a HVUTIL_SUSPENDED state would solve all
> of the corner cases, but I'm sure that would further complicate the
> current code, at least to me. :-)
>

Maybe, if we don't need it than we don't. Basically, I see the only
advantage in having such state: it makes our tricks to support
hibernation more visible in the code.

-- 
Vitaly