Re: [PATCH 3/3] fork, vhost: Use CLONE_THREAD to fix freezer/ps regression

[Mike Christie]

Hey Oleg,

For all these questions below let me get back to you by tomorrow.
I need to confirm if something would be considered a regression by
the core vhost developers.

On 5/23/23 7:15 AM, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> On 05/22, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
>>
>> Right now I think that "int dead" should die,
> 
> No, probably we shouldn't call get_signal() if we have already dequeued SIGKILL.
> 
>> but let me think tomorrow.
> 
> May be something like this... I don't like it but I can't suggest anything better
> right now.
> 
> 	bool killed = false;
> 
> 	for (;;) {
> 		...
> 	
> 		node = llist_del_all(&worker->work_list);
> 		if (!node) {
> 			schedule();
> 			/*
> 			 * When we get a SIGKILL our release function will
> 			 * be called. That will stop new IOs from being queued
> 			 * and check for outstanding cmd responses. It will then
> 			 * call vhost_task_stop to tell us to return and exit.
> 			 */
> 			if (signal_pending(current)) {
> 				struct ksignal ksig;
> 
> 				if (!killed)
> 					killed = get_signal(&ksig);
> 
> 				clear_thread_flag(TIF_SIGPENDING);
> 			}
> 
> 			continue;
> 		}
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> But let me ask a couple of questions. Let's forget this patch, let's look at the
> current code:
> 
> 		node = llist_del_all(&worker->work_list);
> 		if (!node)
> 			schedule();
> 
> 		node = llist_reverse_order(node);
> 		... process works ...
> 
> To me this looks a bit confusing. Shouldn't we do
> 
> 		if (!node) {
> 			schedule();
> 			continue;
> 		}
> 
> just to make the code a bit more clear? If node == NULL then
> llist_reverse_order() and llist_for_each_entry_safe() will do nothing.
> But this is minor.
> 
> 
> 
> 		/* make sure flag is seen after deletion */
> 		smp_wmb();
> 		llist_for_each_entry_safe(work, work_next, node, node) {
> 			clear_bit(VHOST_WORK_QUEUED, &work->flags);
> 
> I am not sure about smp_wmb + clear_bit. Once we clear VHOST_WORK_QUEUED,
> vhost_work_queue() can add this work again and change work->node->next.
> 
> That is why we use _safe, but we need to ensure that llist_for_each_safe()
> completes LOAD(work->node->next) before VHOST_WORK_QUEUED is cleared.
> 
> So it seems that smp_wmb() can't help and should be removed, instead we need
> 
> 		llist_for_each_entry_safe(...) {
> 			smp_mb__before_atomic();
> 			clear_bit(VHOST_WORK_QUEUED, &work->flags);
> 
> Also, if the work->fn pointer is not stable, we should read it before
> smp_mb__before_atomic() as well.
> 
> No?
> 
> 
> 			__set_current_state(TASK_RUNNING);
> 
> Why do we set TASK_RUNNING inside the loop? Does this mean that work->fn()
> can return with current->state != RUNNING ?
> 
> 
> 			work->fn(work);
> 
> Now the main question. Whatever we do, SIGKILL/SIGSTOP/etc can come right
> before we call work->fn(). Is it "safe" to run this callback with
> signal_pending() or fatal_signal_pending() ?
> 
> 
> Finally. I never looked into drivers/vhost/ before so I don't understand
> this code at all, but let me ask anyway... Can we change vhost_dev_flush()
> to run the pending callbacks rather than wait for vhost_worker() ?
> I guess we can't, ->mm won't be correct, but can you confirm?
> 
> Oleg.
>