Re: [PATCH v2] taskstats: fix data-race

[Andrea Parri]

> > >  static struct taskstats *taskstats_tgid_alloc(struct task_struct *tsk)
> > >  {
> > >       struct signal_struct *sig = tsk->signal;
> > > -     struct taskstats *stats;
> > > +     struct taskstats *stats_new, *stats;
> > >
> > > -     if (sig->stats || thread_group_empty(tsk))
> > > -             goto ret;
> > > +     /* Pairs with smp_store_release() below. */
> > > +     stats = READ_ONCE(sig->stats);
> >
> > This pairing suggests that the READ_ONCE() is heading an address
> > dependency, but I fail to identify it: what is the target memory
> > access of such a (putative) dependency?
> 
> I would assume callers of this function access *stats. So the
> dependency is between loading stats and accessing *stats.

AFAICT, the only caller of the function in 5.4-rc2 is taskstats_exit(),
which 'casts' the return value to a boolean (so I really don't see how
any address dependency could be carried over/relied upon here).

  Andrea