Re: [PATCH v3 04/13] rust: add pin-init API core

From: Alice Ryhl
Date: Fri Mar 31 2023 - 06:38:53 EST

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On 3/30/23 00:33, y86-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

From: Benno Lossin <y86-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

This API is used to facilitate safe pinned initialization of structs. It
replaces cumbersome `unsafe` manual initialization with elegant safe macro
invocations.

Due to the size of this change it has been split into six commits:
1. This commit introducing the basic public interface: traits and
functions to represent and create initializers.
2. Adds the `#[pin_data]`, `pin_init!`, `try_pin_init!`, `init!` and
`try_init!` macros along with their internal types.
3. Adds the `InPlaceInit` trait that allows using an initializer to create
an object inside of a `Box<T>` and other smart pointers.
4. Adds the `PinnedDrop` trait and adds macro support for it in
the `#[pin_data]` macro.
5. Adds the `stack_pin_init!` macro allowing to pin-initialize a struct on
the stack.
6. Adds the `Zeroable` trait and `init::zeroed` function to initialize
types that have `0x00` in all bytes as a valid bit pattern.

--

In this section the problem that the new pin-init API solves is outlined.
This message describes the entirety of the API, not just the parts
introduced in this commit. For a more granular explanation and additional
information on pinning and this issue, view [1].

Pinning is Rust's way of enforcing the address stability of a value. When a
value gets pinned it will be impossible for safe code to move it to another
location. This is done by wrapping pointers to said object with `Pin<P>`.
This wrapper prevents safe code from creating mutable references to the
object, preventing mutable access, which is needed to move the value.
`Pin<P>` provides `unsafe` functions to circumvent this and allow
modifications regardless. It is then the programmer's responsibility to
uphold the pinning guarantee.

Many kernel data structures require a stable address, because there are
foreign pointers to them which would get invalidated by moving the
structure. Since these data structures are usually embedded in structs to
use them, this pinning property propagates to the container struct.
Resulting in most structs in both Rust and C code needing to be pinned.

So if we want to have a `mutex` field in a Rust struct, this struct also
needs to be pinned, because a `mutex` contains a `list_head`. Additionally
initializing a `list_head` requires already having the final memory
location available, because it is initialized by pointing it to itself. But
this presents another challenge in Rust: values have to be initialized at
all times. There is the `MaybeUninit<T>` wrapper type, which allows
handling uninitialized memory, but this requires using the `unsafe` raw
pointers and a casting the type to the initialized variant.

This problem gets exacerbated when considering encapsulation and the normal
safety requirements of Rust code. The fields of the Rust `Mutex<T>` should
not be accessible to normal driver code. After all if anyone can modify
the fields, there is no way to ensure the invariants of the `Mutex<T>` are
upheld. But if the fields are inaccessible, then initialization of a
`Mutex<T>` needs to be somehow achieved via a function or a macro. Because
the `Mutex<T>` must be pinned in memory, the function cannot return it by
value. It also cannot allocate a `Box` to put the `Mutex<T>` into, because
that is an unnecessary allocation and indirection which would hurt
performance.

The current solution was to split this function into two parts:

1. A `new` function that returns a partially initialized `Mutex<T>`,
2. An `init` function that requires the `Mutex<T>` to be pinned and that
fully initializes the `Mutex<T>`.

Both of these functions have to be marked `unsafe`, since a call to `new`
needs to be accompanied with a call to `init`, otherwise using the
`Mutex<T>` could result in UB. And because calling `init` twice also is not
safe. While `Mutex<T>` initialization cannot fail, other structs might
also have to allocate memory, which would result in conditional successful
initialization requiring even more manual accommodation work.

Combine this with the problem of pin-projections -- the way of accessing
fields of a pinned struct -- which also have an `unsafe` API, pinned
initialization is riddled with `unsafe` resulting in very poor ergonomics.
Not only that, but also having to call two functions possibly multiple
lines apart makes it very easy to forget it outright or during refactoring.

Here is an example of the current way of initializing a struct with two
synchronization primitives (see [2] for the full example):

struct SharedState {
state_changed: CondVar,
inner: Mutex<SharedStateInner>,
}

impl SharedState {
fn try_new() -> Result<Arc<Self>> {
let mut state = Pin::from(UniqueArc::try_new(Self {
// SAFETY: `condvar_init!` is called below.
state_changed: unsafe { CondVar::new() },
// SAFETY: `mutex_init!` is called below.
inner: unsafe {
Mutex::new(SharedStateInner { token_count: 0 })
},
})?);

// SAFETY: `state_changed` is pinned when `state` is.
let pinned = unsafe {
state.as_mut().map_unchecked_mut(|s| &mut s.state_changed)
};
kernel::condvar_init!(pinned, "SharedState::state_changed");

// SAFETY: `inner` is pinned when `state` is.
let pinned = unsafe {
state.as_mut().map_unchecked_mut(|s| &mut s.inner)
};
kernel::mutex_init!(pinned, "SharedState::inner");

Ok(state.into())
}
}

The pin-init API of this patch solves this issue by providing a
comprehensive solution comprised of macros and traits. Here is the example
from above using the pin-init API:

#[pin_data]
struct SharedState {
#[pin]
state_changed: CondVar,
#[pin]
inner: Mutex<SharedStateInner>,
}

impl SharedState {
fn new() -> impl PinInit<Self> {
pin_init!(Self {
state_changed <- new_condvar!("SharedState::state_changed"),
inner <- new_mutex!(
SharedStateInner { token_count: 0 },
"SharedState::inner",
),
})
}
}

Notably the way the macro is used here requires no `unsafe` and thus comes
with the usual Rust promise of safe code not introducing any memory
violations. Additionally it is now up to the caller of `new()` to decide
the memory location of the `SharedState`. They can choose at the moment
`Arc<T>`, `Box<T>` or the stack.

--

The API has the following architecture:
1. Initializer traits `PinInit<T, E>` and `Init<T, E>` that act like
closures.
2. Macros to create these initializer traits safely.
3. Functions to allow manually writing initializers.

The initializers (an `impl PinInit<T, E>`) receive a raw pointer pointing
to uninitialized memory and their job is to fully initialize a `T` at that
location. If initialization fails, they return an error (`E`) by value.

This way of initializing cannot be safely exposed to the user, since it
relies upon these properties outside of the control of the trait:
- the memory location (slot) needs to be valid memory,
- if initialization fails, the slot should not be read from,
- the value in the slot should be pinned, so it cannot move and the memory
cannot be deallocated until the value is dropped.

This is why using an initializer is facilitated by another trait that
ensures these requirements.

These initializers can be created manually by just supplying a closure that
fulfills the same safety requirements as `PinInit<T, E>`. But this is an
`unsafe` operation. To allow safe initializer creation, the `pin_init!` is
provided along with three other variants: `try_pin_init!`, `try_init!` and
`init!`. These take a modified struct initializer as a parameter and
generate a closure that initializes the fields in sequence.
The macros take great care in upholding the safety requirements:
- A shadowed struct type is used as the return type of the closure instead
of `()`. This is to prevent early returns, as these would prevent full
initialization.
- To ensure every field is only initialized once, a normal struct
initializer is placed in unreachable code. The type checker will emit
errors if a field is missing or specified multiple times.
- When initializing a field fails, the whole initializer will fail and
automatically drop fields that have been initialized earlier.
- Only the correct initializer type is allowed for unpinned fields. You
cannot use a `impl PinInit<T, E>` to initialize a structurally not pinned
field.

To ensure the last point, an additional macro `#[pin_data]` is needed. This
macro annotates the struct itself and the user specifies structurally
pinned and not pinned fields.

Because dropping a pinned struct is also not allowed to break the pinning
invariants, another macro attribute `#[pinned_drop]` is needed. This
macro is introduced in a following commit.

These two macros also have mechanisms to ensure the overall safety of the
API. Additionally, they utilize a combined proc-macro, declarative macro
design: first a proc-macro enables the outer attribute syntax `#[...]` and
does some important pre-parsing. Notably this prepares the generics such
that the declarative macro can handle them using token trees. Then the
actual parsing of the structure and the emission of code is handled by a
declarative macro.

For pin-projections the crates `pin-project` [3] and `pin-project-lite` [4]
had been considered, but were ultimately rejected:
- `pin-project` depends on `syn` [5] which is a very big dependency, around
50k lines of code.
- `pin-project-lite` is a more reasonable 5k lines of code, but contains a
very complex declarative macro to parse generics. On top of that it
would require modification that would need to be maintained
independently.

Link: https://rust-for-linux.com/the-safe-pinned-initialization-problem [1]
Link: https://github.com/Rust-for-Linux/linux/blob/f509ede33fc10a07eba3da14aa00302bd4b5dddd/samples/rust/rust_miscdev.rs [2]
Link: https://crates.io/crates/pin-project [3]
Link: https://crates.io/crates/pin-project-lite [4]
Link: https://crates.io/crates/syn [5]
Co-developed-by: Gary Guo <gary@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Gary Guo <gary@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Benno Lossin <y86-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
rust/kernel/init.rs | 210 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
rust/kernel/lib.rs | 7 ++
scripts/Makefile.build | 2 +-
3 files changed, 218 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
create mode 100644 rust/kernel/init.rs

diff --git a/rust/kernel/init.rs b/rust/kernel/init.rs
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..5e5e4dc6bae7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/rust/kernel/init.rs
@@ -0,0 +1,210 @@
+// SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0 OR MIT
+
+//! API to safely and fallibly initialize pinned `struct`s using in-place constructors.
+//!
+//! It also allows in-place initialization of big `struct`s that would otherwise produce a stack
+//! overflow.
+//!
+//! Most `struct`s from the [`sync`] module need to be pinned, because they contain self-referential
+//! `struct`s from C. [Pinning][pinning] is Rust's way of ensuring data does not move.
+//!
+//! # Overview
+//!
+//! To initialize a `struct` with an in-place constructor you will need two things:
+//! - an in-place constructor,
+//! - a memory location that can hold your `struct`.
+//!
+//! To get an in-place constructor there are generally two options:
+//! - a custom function/macro returning an in-place constructor provided by someone else,
+//! - using the unsafe function [`pin_init_from_closure()`] to manually create an initializer.
+//!
+//! Aside from pinned initialization, this API also supports in-place construction without pinning,
+//! the marcos/types/functions are generally named like the pinned variants without the `pin`
+//! prefix.

Typo: Should be "macros".

+//!
+//! [`sync`]: kernel::sync
+//! [pinning]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/pin/index.html
+//! [structurally pinned fields]:
+//! https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/pin/index.html#pinning-is-structural-for-field
+//! [`Arc<T>`]: crate::sync::Arc
+//! [`impl PinInit<Foo>`]: PinInit
+//! [`impl PinInit<T, E>`]: PinInit
+//! [`impl Init<T, E>`]: Init
+//! [`Opaque`]: kernel::types::Opaque
+//! [`pin_data`]: ::macros::pin_data
+//! [`UniqueArc<T>`]: kernel::sync::UniqueArc
+//! [`Box<T>`]: alloc::boxed::Box
+
+use core::{convert::Infallible, marker::PhantomData, mem::MaybeUninit};
+
+/// A pinned initializer for `T`.
+///
+/// To use this initializer, you will need a suitable memory location that can hold a `T`. This can
+/// be [`Box<T>`], [`Arc<T>`], [`UniqueArc<T>`].
+///
+/// Also see the [module description](self).
+///
+/// # Safety
+///
+/// When implementing this type you will need to take great care. Also there are probably very few
+/// cases where a manual implementation is necessary. Use [`pin_init_from_closure`] where possible.
+///
+/// The [`PinInit::__pinned_init`] function
+/// - returns `Ok(())` if it initialized every field of `slot`,
+/// - returns `Err(err)` if it encountered an error and then cleaned `slot`, this means:
+/// - `slot` can be deallocated without UB occurring,
+/// - `slot` does not need to be dropped,
+/// - `slot` is not partially initialized.
+/// - while constructing the `T` at `slot` it upholds the pinning invariants of `T`.
+///
+/// [`Arc<T>`]: crate::sync::Arc
+/// [`Arc::pin_init`]: crate::sync::Arc::pin_init
+/// [`UniqueArc<T>`]: kernel::sync::UniqueArc
+/// [`Box<T>`]: alloc::boxed::Box
+#[must_use = "An initializer must be used in order to create its value."]
+pub unsafe trait PinInit<T: ?Sized, E = Infallible>: Sized {
+ /// Initializes `slot`.
+ ///
+ /// # Safety
+ ///
+ /// - `slot` is a valid pointer to uninitialized memory.
+ /// - the caller does not touch `slot` when `Err` is returned, they are only permitted to
+ /// deallocate.
+ /// - `slot` will not move until it is dropped, i.e. it will be pinned.
+ unsafe fn __pinned_init(self, slot: *mut T) -> Result<(), E>;
+}
+
+/// An initializer for `T`.
+///
+/// To use this initializer, you will need a suitable memory location that can hold a `T`. This can
+/// be [`Box<T>`], [`Arc<T>`], [`UniqueArc<T>`]. Because [`PinInit<T, E>`] is a super trait, you can
+/// use every function that takes it as well.
+///
+/// Also see the [module description](self).
+///
+/// # Safety
+///
+/// When implementing this type you will need to take great care. Also there are probably very few
+/// cases where a manual implementation is necessary. Use [`init_from_closure`] where possible.
+///
+/// The [`Init::__init`] function
+/// - returns `Ok(())` if it initialized every field of `slot`,
+/// - returns `Err(err)` if it encountered an error and then cleaned `slot`, this means:
+/// - `slot` can be deallocated without UB occurring,
+/// - `slot` does not need to be dropped,
+/// - `slot` is not partially initialized.
+/// - while constructing the `T` at `slot` it upholds the pinning invariants of `T`.
+///
+/// The `__pinned_init` function from the supertrait [`PinInit`] needs to execute the exact same
+/// code as `__init`.
+///
+/// Contrary to its supertype [`PinInit<T, E>`] the caller is allowed to
+/// move the pointee after initialization.
+///
+/// [`Arc<T>`]: crate::sync::Arc
+/// [`UniqueArc<T>`]: kernel::sync::UniqueArc
+/// [`Box<T>`]: alloc::boxed::Box
+#[must_use = "An initializer must be used in order to create its value."]
+pub unsafe trait Init<T: ?Sized, E = Infallible>: PinInit<T, E> {
+ /// Initializes `slot`.
+ ///
+ /// # Safety
+ ///
+ /// - `slot` is a valid pointer to uninitialized memory.
+ /// - the caller does not touch `slot` when `Err` is returned, they are only permitted to
+ /// deallocate.
+ unsafe fn __init(self, slot: *mut T) -> Result<(), E>;
+}
+
+type Invariant<T> = PhantomData<fn(*mut T) -> *mut T>;

I think it would make sense to include a link to the nomicon on the documentation for the Invariant type.

+// This is the module-internal type implementing `PinInit` and `Init`. It is unsafe to create this
+// type, since the closure needs to fulfill the same safety requirement as the
+// `__pinned_init`/`__init` functions.
+struct InitClosure<F, T: ?Sized, E>(F, Invariant<(E, T)>);
+
+// SAFETY: While constructing the `InitClosure`, the user promised that it upholds the
+// `__pinned_init` invariants.
+unsafe impl<T: ?Sized, F, E> PinInit<T, E> for InitClosure<F, T, E>
+where
+ F: FnOnce(*mut T) -> Result<(), E>,
+{
+ #[inline]
+ unsafe fn __pinned_init(self, slot: *mut T) -> Result<(), E> {
+ (self.0)(slot)
+ }
+}
+
+// SAFETY: While constructing the `InitClosure`, the user promised that it upholds the
+// `__init` invariants.
+unsafe impl<T: ?Sized, F, E> Init<T, E> for InitClosure<F, T, E>
+where
+ F: FnOnce(*mut T) -> Result<(), E>,
+{
+ #[inline]
+ unsafe fn __init(self, slot: *mut T) -> Result<(), E> {
+ (self.0)(slot)
+ }
+}
+
+/// Creates a new [`PinInit<T, E>`] from the given closure.
+///
+/// # Safety
+///
+/// The closure:
+/// - returns `Ok(())` if it initialized every field of `slot`,
+/// - returns `Err(err)` if it encountered an error and then cleaned `slot`, this means:
+/// - `slot` can be deallocated without UB occurring,
+/// - `slot` does not need to be dropped,
+/// - `slot` is not partially initialized.
+/// - may assume that the `slot` does not move if `T: !Unpin`,
+/// - while constructing the `T` at `slot` it upholds the pinning invariants of `T`.
+#[inline]
+pub const unsafe fn pin_init_from_closure<T: ?Sized, E>(
+ f: impl FnOnce(*mut T) -> Result<(), E>,
+) -> impl PinInit<T, E> {
+ InitClosure(f, PhantomData)
+}
+
+/// Creates a new [`Init<T, E>`] from the given closure.
+///
+/// # Safety
+///
+/// The closure:
+/// - returns `Ok(())` if it initialized every field of `slot`,
+/// - returns `Err(err)` if it encountered an error and then cleaned `slot`, this means:
+/// - `slot` can be deallocated without UB occurring,
+/// - `slot` does not need to be dropped,
+/// - `slot` is not partially initialized.
+/// - the `slot` may move after initialization.
+/// - while constructing the `T` at `slot` it upholds the pinning invariants of `T`.
+#[inline]
+pub const unsafe fn init_from_closure<T: ?Sized, E>(
+ f: impl FnOnce(*mut T) -> Result<(), E>,
+) -> impl Init<T, E> {
+ InitClosure(f, PhantomData)
+}
+
+/// An initializer that leaves the memory uninitialized.
+///
+/// The initializer is a no-op. The `slot` memory is not changed.
+#[inline]
+pub fn uninit<T>() -> impl Init<MaybeUninit<T>> {
+ // SAFETY: The memory is allowed to be uninitialized.
+ unsafe { init_from_closure(|_| Ok(())) }
+}
+
+// SAFETY: Every type can be initialized by-value.
+unsafe impl<T> PinInit<T> for T {
+ unsafe fn __pinned_init(self, slot: *mut T) -> Result<(), Infallible> {
+ unsafe { slot.write(self) };
+ Ok(())
+ }
+}
+
+// SAFETY: Every type can be initialized by-value.
+unsafe impl<T> Init<T> for T {
+ unsafe fn __init(self, slot: *mut T) -> Result<(), Infallible> {
+ unsafe { slot.write(self) };
+ Ok(())
+ }
+}
diff --git a/rust/kernel/lib.rs b/rust/kernel/lib.rs
index 223564f9f0cc..3e2777d26ff5 100644
--- a/rust/kernel/lib.rs
+++ b/rust/kernel/lib.rs
@@ -16,7 +16,9 @@
#![feature(coerce_unsized)]
#![feature(core_ffi_c)]
#![feature(dispatch_from_dyn)]
+#![feature(explicit_generic_args_with_impl_trait)]
#![feature(generic_associated_types)]
+#![feature(new_uninit)]
#![feature(receiver_trait)]
#![feature(unsize)]

@@ -25,11 +27,16 @@
#[cfg(not(CONFIG_RUST))]
compile_error!("Missing kernel configuration for conditional compilation");

+#[allow(unused_extern_crates)]
+// Allow proc-macros to refer to `::kernel` inside the `kernel` crate (this crate).
+extern crate self as kernel;
+
#[cfg(not(test))]
#[cfg(not(testlib))]
mod allocator;
mod build_assert;
pub mod error;
+pub mod init;
pub mod prelude;
pub mod print;
mod static_assert;
diff --git a/scripts/Makefile.build b/scripts/Makefile.build
index 76323201232a..f9bdc01c8191 100644
--- a/scripts/Makefile.build
+++ b/scripts/Makefile.build
@@ -277,7 +277,7 @@ $(obj)/%.lst: $(src)/%.c FORCE
# Compile Rust sources (.rs)
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

-rust_allowed_features := core_ffi_c
+rust_allowed_features := core_ffi_c,explicit_generic_args_with_impl_trait

rust_common_cmd = \
RUST_MODFILE=$(modfile) $(RUSTC_OR_CLIPPY) $(rust_flags) \
--
2.39.2

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In reply to: Benno Lossin: "Re: [PATCH v3 04/13] rust: add pin-init API core"
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