Re: [PATCH RFC v2] kernel: decouple TASK_WORK TWA_SIGNAL handling from signals

[Jens Axboe]

On 10/1/20 10:27 AM, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> Jens,
> 
> I'll read this version tomorrow, but:
> 
> On 10/01, Jens Axboe wrote:
>>
>>  static inline int signal_pending(struct task_struct *p)
>>  {
>> -	return unlikely(test_tsk_thread_flag(p,TIF_SIGPENDING));
>> +#ifdef TIF_TASKWORK
>> +	/*
>> +	 * TIF_TASKWORK isn't really a signal, but it requires the same
>> +	 * behavior of restarting the system call to force a kernel/user
>> +	 * transition.
>> +	 */
>> +	return unlikely(test_tsk_thread_flag(p, TIF_SIGPENDING) ||
>> +			test_tsk_thread_flag(p, TIF_TASKWORK));
>> +#else
>> +	return unlikely(test_tsk_thread_flag(p, TIF_SIGPENDING));
>> +#endif
> 
> This change alone is already very wrong.
> 
> signal_pending(task) == T means that this task will do get_signal() as
> soon as it can, and this basically means you can't "divorce" SIGPENDING
> and TASKWORK.
> 
> Simple example. Suppose we have a single-threaded task T.
> 
> Someone does task_work_add(T, TWA_SIGNAL). This makes signal_pending()==T
> and this is what we need.
> 
> Now suppose that another task sends a signal to T before T calls
> task_work_run() and clears TIF_TASKWORK. In this case SIGPENDING won't
> be set because signal_pending() is already set (see wants_signal), and
> this means that T won't notice this signal.

That's a good point, and I have been thinking along those lines. The
"problem" is the two different use cases:

1) The "should I return from schedule() or break out of schedule() loops
   kind of use cases".

2) Internal signal delivery use cases.

The former wants one that factors in TIF_TASKWORK, while the latter
should of course only look at TIF_SIGPENDING.

Now, my gut reaction would be to have __signal_pending() that purely
checks for TIF_SIGPENDING, and make sure we use that on the signal
delivery side of things. Or something with a better name than that, but
functionally the same. Ala:

static inline int __signal_pending(struct task_struct *p)
{
	return unlikely(test_tsk_thread_flag(p, TIF_SIGPENDING));
}

static inline int signal_pending(struct task_struct *p)
{
#ifdef TIF_TASKWORK
	return unlikely(test_tsk_thread_flag(p, TIF_TASKWORK)||
			__signal_pending(p));
#else
	return __signal_pending(p));
#endif
}

and then use __signal_pending() on the signal delivery side.

It's still not great in the sense that renaming signal_pending() would
be a better choice, but that's a whole lot of churn...

-- 
Jens Axboe