[PATCH 4.4 11/43] dump_stack: avoid the livelock of the dump_lock

[Greg Kroah-Hartman]

From: Kevin Hao <haokexin@xxxxxxxxx>

commit 5cbf2fff3bba8d3c6a4d47c1754de1cf57e2b01f upstream.

In the current code, we use the atomic_cmpxchg() to serialize the output
of the dump_stack(), but this implementation suffers the thundering herd
problem.  We have observed such kind of livelock on a Marvell cn96xx
board(24 cpus) when heavily using the dump_stack() in a kprobe handler.
Actually we can let the competitors to wait for the releasing of the
lock before jumping to atomic_cmpxchg().  This will definitely mitigate
the thundering herd problem.  Thanks Linus for the suggestion.

[akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: fix comment]
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20191030031637.6025-1-haokexin@xxxxxxxxx
Fixes: b58d977432c8 ("dump_stack: serialize the output from dump_stack()")
Signed-off-by: Kevin Hao <haokexin@xxxxxxxxx>
Suggested-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

---
 lib/dump_stack.c |    7 ++++++-
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

--- a/lib/dump_stack.c
+++ b/lib/dump_stack.c
@@ -44,7 +44,12 @@ retry:
 		was_locked = 1;
 	} else {
 		local_irq_restore(flags);
-		cpu_relax();
+		/*
+		 * Wait for the lock to release before jumping to
+		 * atomic_cmpxchg() in order to mitigate the thundering herd
+		 * problem.
+		 */
+		do { cpu_relax(); } while (atomic_read(&dump_lock) != -1);
 		goto retry;
 	}