Re: [PATCH] kthread: Fix kthread_mod_delayed_work vs kthread_cancel_delayed_work_sync race

[Martin Liu]

Hi Folks,

Could I get some help for reviewing this patch? Thank you.

On Thu, May 13, 2021 at 02:54:57PM +0800, Martin Liu wrote:
> We encountered a system hang issue while doing the tests. The callstack
> is as following
> 
> 	schedule+0x80/0x100
> 	schedule_timeout+0x48/0x138
> 	wait_for_common+0xa4/0x134
> 	wait_for_completion+0x1c/0x2c
> 	kthread_flush_work+0x114/0x1cc
> 	kthread_cancel_work_sync.llvm.16514401384283632983+0xe8/0x144
> 	kthread_cancel_delayed_work_sync+0x18/0x2c
> 	xxxx_pm_notify+0xb0/0xd8
> 	blocking_notifier_call_chain_robust+0x80/0x194
> 	pm_notifier_call_chain_robust+0x28/0x4c
> 	suspend_prepare+0x40/0x260
> 	enter_state+0x80/0x3f4
> 	pm_suspend+0x60/0xdc
> 	state_store+0x108/0x144
> 	kobj_attr_store+0x38/0x88
> 	sysfs_kf_write+0x64/0xc0
> 	kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x108/0x1d0
> 	vfs_write+0x2f4/0x368
> 	ksys_write+0x7c/0xec
> 
> When we started investigating, we found race between
> kthread_mod_delayed_work vs kthread_cancel_delayed_work_sync. The race's
> result could be simply reproduced as a kthread_mod_delayed_work with
> a following kthread_flush_work call.
> 
> Thing is we release kthread_mod_delayed_work kspin_lock in
> __kthread_cancel_work so it opens a race window for
> kthread_cancel_delayed_work_sync to change the canceling count used to
> prevent dwork from being requeued before calling kthread_flush_work.
> However, we don't check the canceling count after returning from
> __kthread_cancel_work and then insert the dwork to the worker. It
> results the following kthread_flush_work inserts flush work to dwork's
> tail which is at worker's dealyed_work_list. Therefore, flush work will
> never get moved to the worker's work_list to be executed. Finally,
> kthread_cancel_delayed_work_sync will NOT be able to get completed and
> wait forever. The code sequence diagram is as following
> 
> Thread A                Thread B
> kthread_mod_delayed_work
>   spin_lock
>    __kthread_cancel_work
>     canceling = 1
>     spin_unlock
>                         kthread_cancel_delayed_work_sync
>                           spin_lock
>                             kthread_cancel_work
>                           canceling = 2
>                           spin_unlock
>     del_timer_sync
>     spin_lock
>     canceling = 1 // canceling count gets update in ThreadB before
>   queue_delayed_work // dwork is put into the woker’s dealyed_work_list
>                         without checking the canceling count
>  spin_unlock
>                           kthread_flush_work
>                             spin_lock
>                             Insert flush work // at the tail of the
> 			                         dwork which is at
> 						 the worker’s
> 						 dealyed_work_list
>                             spin_unlock
>                             wait_for_completion // Thread B stuck here as
> 			                           flush work will never
> 						   get executed
> 
> The canceling count could change in __kthread_cancel_work as the spinlock
> get released and regained in between, let's check the count again before
> we queue the delayed work to avoid the race.
> 
> Fixes: 37be45d49dec2 ("kthread: allow to cancel kthread work")
> Tested-by: David Chao <davidchao@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Martin Liu <liumartin@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  kernel/kthread.c | 13 +++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 13 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/kernel/kthread.c b/kernel/kthread.c
> index fe3f2a40d61e..064eae335c1f 100644
> --- a/kernel/kthread.c
> +++ b/kernel/kthread.c
> @@ -1181,6 +1181,19 @@ bool kthread_mod_delayed_work(struct kthread_worker *worker,
>  		goto out;
>  
>  	ret = __kthread_cancel_work(work, true, &flags);
> +
> +	/*
> +	 * Canceling could run in parallel from kthread_cancel_delayed_work_sync
> +	 * and change work's canceling count as the spinlock is released and regain
> +	 * in __kthread_cancel_work so we need to check the count again. Otherwise,
> +	 * we might incorrectly queue the dwork and further cause
> +	 * cancel_delayed_work_sync thread waiting for flush dwork endlessly.
> +	 */
> +	if (work->canceling) {
> +		ret = false;
> +		goto out;
> +	}
> +
>  fast_queue:
>  	__kthread_queue_delayed_work(worker, dwork, delay);
>  out:
> -- 
> 2.31.1.607.g51e8a6a459-goog
>