Re: [PATCH 3/5 v0.6] sched/umcg: RFC: implement UMCG syscalls

[Thomas Gleixner]

Peter,

On Fri, Sep 17 2021 at 11:03, Peter Oskolkov wrote:

> Define struct umcg_task and two syscalls: sys_umcg_ctl sys_umcg_wait.
>
> All key operations, such as wait/wake/context-switch, as well as
> timeouts and block/wake detection, are working quite reliably.
>
> In addition, the userspace can now force the kernel to preempt
> a running worker by changing its state from RUNNING to
> RUNNING | PREEMPTED and sending a signal to it. This new functionality
> is less well tested than the key operations above, but is working
> well in the common case of the worker busy in the userspace.
>
> These big things remain to be addressed (in no particular order):
> - tracing/debugging
> - faster context switches (see umcg_do_context_switch in umcg.c)
> - other architectures (we will need at least arm64 in addition to amd64)
> - tools/lib/umcg for userspace
> - kselftests
>
> I'm working on finalizing libumcg and kselftests.
>
> See Documentation/userspace-api/umcg.[txt|rst] for API usage and
> other details.

The above is a work log and a todo list, but not a change log.

Change logs have to explain the what and especially the why and for new
concepts also the design and the rationale behind it.

And no, links to random discussions are not a replacement for that. It's
not the job of a reviewer to dig for that information. It's the task of
the submitter to provide that information so the reviewer can digest it.

> v0.5->v0.6 changes:
> - umcg_task pages are now pinned for RUNNING workers;

What's the rationale for that? Why is that needed and desired?

> v0.2->v0.3 changes:
> - the overall approach is now based on peterz@'s suggestion in
>   https://lore.kernel.org/patchwork/cover/1433967/

All of these lore.kernel/org/patchwork/* links resolve to 404. Please
use proper lore.kernel.org/r/$MSGID links

> /*
> +
> --- a/kernel/entry/common.c
> +++ b/kernel/entry/common.c
> @@ -173,6 +173,7 @@ static unsigned long exit_to_user_mode_loop(struct pt_regs *regs,
>
>  		if (ti_work & _TIF_NOTIFY_RESUME) {
>  			tracehook_notify_resume(regs);
> +			umcg_handle_notify_resume();  /* might sleep */

Please do not use tail comments. They are horrible and disturb the
reading flow.

Aside of that this 'might sleep' info is not really interesting. All
functions which are invoked in exit_to_user_mode_loop() can sleep, so
what's special about this one?

> diff --git a/kernel/exit.c b/kernel/exit.c
> index fd1c04193e18..fdd4e923cca9 100644
> --- a/kernel/exit.c
> +++ b/kernel/exit.c
> @@ -744,6 +744,8 @@ void __noreturn do_exit(long code)
>  	if (unlikely(!tsk->pid))
>  		panic("Attempted to kill the idle task!");
>
> +	umcg_handle_exit();

Why is this invoked _before_ the oops fixup? How is that correct in the
oops case?

> index 12a9d053e724..c9133cf153b9 100644
> --- a/kernel/sched/core.c
> +++ b/kernel/sched/core.c
> @@ -4159,6 +4159,9 @@ static void __sched_fork(unsigned long clone_flags, struct task_struct *p)
>  	p->wake_entry.u_flags = CSD_TYPE_TTWU;
>  	p->migration_pending = NULL;
>  #endif
> +#ifdef CONFIG_UMCG
> +	umcg_clear_child(p);
> +#endif

Can you please provide stub functions for the CONFIG_UMCG=n case instead
of sprinkling #ifdefs all over the place?

>  DEFINE_STATIC_KEY_FALSE(sched_numa_balancing);
> @@ -6105,10 +6108,14 @@ static inline void sched_submit_work(struct task_struct *tsk)
>  	 * in the possible wakeup of a kworker and because wq_worker_sleeping()
>  	 * requires it.
>  	 */
> -	if (task_flags & (PF_WQ_WORKER | PF_IO_WORKER)) {
> +	if (task_flags & (PF_WQ_WORKER | PF_IO_WORKER | PF_UMCG_WORKER)) {
>  		preempt_disable();
>  		if (task_flags & PF_WQ_WORKER)
>  			wq_worker_sleeping(tsk);
> +#ifdef CONFIG_UMCG
> +		else if (task_flags & PF_UMCG_WORKER)
> +			umcg_wq_worker_sleeping(tsk);
> +#endif

This #ifdeffery can be completely avoided:

#define PF_SWAPWRITE		0x00800000	/* Allowed to write to swap */
#ifdef CONFIG_UMCG
# define PF_UMCG_WORKER		0x01000000	/* UMCG worker */
#else
# define PF_UMCG_WORKER		0x00000000
#endif

plus a stub function for umcg_wq_worker_sleeping() and for UMCG=n the whole muck is
compiled out, the flags test does not care about PF_UMCG_WORKER....

But aside of that, why has umcg_wq_worker_sleeping() to run with
preemption disabled?

> +/*
> + * Called by sched_submit_work() for UMCG workers from within preempt_disable()
> + * context. In the common case, the worker's state changes RUNNING => BLOCKED,
> + * and its server's state changes IDLE => RUNNING, and the server is ttwu-ed.
> + *
> + * Under some conditions (e.g. the worker is "locked", see
> + * /Documentation/userspace-api/umcg.[txt|rst] for more details), the
> + * function does nothing.
> + */
> +static void __umcg_wq_worker_sleeping(struct task_struct *tsk)
> +{
> +	struct umcg_task __user *ut_worker = tsk->umcg_task;
> +	u32 prev_state, next_state, server_tid;
> +	bool preempted = false;
> +	int ret;
> +
> +	if (WARN_ONCE((tsk != current) || !ut_worker, "Invalid umcg worker"))
> +		return;
> +
> +	/* Sometimes "locked" workers run without servers. */

Sometimes the sun shines... Can you please add understandable comments?
What's wrong with:

       /* Nothing to do for workers which are not attached to a server */

or something like that which explains nicely what this is about.

> +	if (unlikely(!tsk->pinned_umcg_server_page))

and the comment is needed because tsk->pinned_umcg_server_page does not
make it obvious what the test is about while

        if (unlikely(!ut_worker_has_server(tsk)))

or

	if (unlikely(ut_worker_detached(tsk)))

would be self explanatory.

> +		return;
> +
> +	smp_mb();  /* The userspace may change the state concurrently. */

No tail comments please.

Also this does not explain why this needs to be a full barrier. All
barriers have to come with a proper explanation what they are
serializing against and what the counter part is even if the counter
part is in user space. And that documentation wants to be in the code
and not somewhere else.

> +	if (get_user_nosleep(prev_state, &ut_worker->state))
> +		goto die;  /* EFAULT */

This /* EFAULT */ comment documents the obvious. Can you please document
the non-obvious things properly?

> +
> +	if (prev_state & UMCG_TF_LOCKED)
> +		return;
> +
> +	if ((prev_state & UMCG_TASK_STATE_MASK) != UMCG_TASK_RUNNING)
> +		return;  /* the worker is in umcg_wait */

So if the worker is in umcg_wait() then why is it reaching this place at
all? The current task surely knows that it comes here from umcg_wait(),
right?

> +retry_once:
> +	next_state = prev_state & ~UMCG_TASK_STATE_MASK;
> +	next_state |= UMCG_TASK_BLOCKED;
> +	preempted = prev_state & UMCG_TF_PREEMPTED;
> +
> +	ret = cmpxchg_user_32_nosleep(&ut_worker->state, &prev_state, next_state);
> +	if (ret == -EAGAIN) {
> +		if (preempted)
> +			goto die;  /* Preemption can only happen once. */
> +
> +		if (prev_state != (UMCG_TASK_RUNNING | UMCG_TF_PREEMPTED))

This check falls flat on it's nose when one of the user space bits
(24-31) is set in prev_state. prev_state is a misnomer anyway. The usual
convention is to use cur_state because that's what it is up to the point
where the cmpxchg succeeds.

> +			goto die;  /* Only preemption can happen. */
> +
> +		preempted = true;

How is this supposed to do anything? This goes back to retry_once which
overwrites preempted...

> +		goto retry_once;
> +	}

> +	if (ret)
> +		goto die;  /* EFAULT */
> +
> +	if (get_user_nosleep(server_tid, &ut_worker->next_tid))
> +		goto die;  /* EFAULT */
> +
> +	if (!server_tid)
> +		return;  /* Waking a waiting worker leads here. */

I have no idea what that comment is trying to say.

> +	/* The idle server's wait may timeout. */
> +	/* TODO: make a smarter context switch below when available. */

Neither those make any sense to me. 

> +	if (mark_server_running(server_tid, false))
> +		umcg_ttwu(server_tid, WF_CURRENT_CPU);

Well, after looking at both functions I can see why this wants to be
smarter. Doing the vpid lookup twice instead of once is certainly not
the smartest solution.

> +	return;
> +
> +die:
> +	pr_warn("umcg_wq_worker_sleeping: killing task %d\n", current->pid);
> +	force_sig(SIGKILL);
> +}
> +
> +/* Called from sched_submit_work() with preempt_disable. */
> +void umcg_wq_worker_sleeping(struct task_struct *tsk)
> +{
> +	__umcg_wq_worker_sleeping(tsk);
> +	umcg_unpin_pages();

Coming back to my previous question: Why has all of this to run with
preemption disabled?

There is absolutely no reason to do that and just because you picked a
place to invoke that with preemption disabled does not count.

In fact none of the existing two functions require to be invoked with
preemption disabled and I'm going to send out a patch which removes that
historic leftover.

And if this is not called with preemption disabled then none of these
misnomed _nosleep() accessors are needed and the code can be simplified.

> + * Try to wake up. May be called with preempt_disable set. May be called
> + * cross-process.
> + *
> + * Note: umcg_ttwu succeeds even if ttwu fails: see wait/wake state
> + *       ordering logic.
> + */
> +static int umcg_ttwu(u32 next_tid, int wake_flags)
> +{
> +	struct task_struct *next;
> +
> +	rcu_read_lock();
> +	next = find_task_by_vpid(next_tid);
> +	if (!next || !(READ_ONCE(next->umcg_task))) {
> +		rcu_read_unlock();
> +		return -ESRCH;
> +	}
> +
> +	/* Note: next does not necessarily share mm with current. */

Which is irrelevant, but what's relevant is that there is absolutely no
sanity check of next_tid. So this just wakes up what ever TID user space
writes into the user space task memory. Anything copmeing from user
space cannot be trusted and needs to be validated. find_task_by_vpid()
is not sufficient for that.

> +	try_to_wake_up(next, TASK_NORMAL, wake_flags);  /* Result ignored. */
> +	rcu_read_unlock();
> +
> +	return 0;
> +}


> +/* Returns true on success, false on _any_ error. */
> +static bool mark_server_running(u32 server_tid, bool may_sleep)
> +{
> +	struct umcg_task __user *ut_server = NULL;
> +	u32 state = UMCG_TASK_IDLE;
> +	struct task_struct *tsk;
> +
> +	rcu_read_lock();
> +	tsk = find_task_by_vpid(server_tid);
> +	if (tsk)
> +		ut_server = READ_ONCE(tsk->umcg_task);
> +	rcu_read_unlock();
> +
> +	if (!ut_server)
> +		return false;
> +
> +	if (READ_ONCE(current->mm) != READ_ONCE(tsk->mm))
> +		return false;

This is broken because it's outside the rcu read side critical section
so @tsk can be gone already. Also this lacks a check whether @tsk is a
kthread because kthreads can use a user mm temporarily.

Also what's the purpose of these undocumented READ_ONCE() instances?

Thanks,

        tglx