Re: [PATCH] io_uring: simplify the SQPOLL thread check when cancelling requests

[Pavel Begunkov]

On 1/12/25 16:14, Bui Quang Minh wrote:
...
> > > @@ -2898,7 +2899,12 @@ static __cold void io_ring_exit_work(struct
> > > work_struct *work)
> > >           if (ctx->flags & IORING_SETUP_DEFER_TASKRUN)
> > >               io_move_task_work_from_local(ctx);
> > >
> > > -        while (io_uring_try_cancel_requests(ctx, NULL, true))
> > > +        /*
> > > +         * Even if SQPOLL thread reaches this path, don't force
> > > +         * iopoll here, let the io_uring_cancel_generic handle
> > > +         * it.
> >
> > Just curious, will sq_thread enter this io_ring_exit_work path?
>
> AFAIK, yes. The SQPOLL thread is created with create_io_thread, this function creates a new task with CLONE_FILES. So all the open files is shared. There will be case that the parent closes its io_uring file and SQPOLL thread become the only owner of that file. So it can reach this path when terminating.

The function is run by a separate kthread, the sqpoll task doesn't
call it directly.

[...]
> > > > io_uring,
> > > -                                     cancel_all);
> > > +                                     cancel_all,
> > > +                                     true);
> > >           }
> > >
> > >           if (loop) {
> > > --
> > > 2.43.0
> >
> > Maybe you miss something, just like Begunkov mentioned in your last version patch:
> >
> >    io_uring_cancel_generic
> >      WARN_ON_ONCE(sqd && sqd->thread != current);
> >
> > This WARN_ON_ONCE will never be triggered, so you could remove it.
>
> He meant that we don't need to annotate sqd->thread access in this debug check. The io_uring_cancel_generic function has assumption that the sgd is not NULL only when it's called by a SQPOLL thread. So the check means to ensure this assumption. A data race happens only when this function is called by other tasks than the SQPOLL thread, so it can race with the SQPOLL termination. However, the sgd is not NULL only when this function is called by SQPOLL thread. In normal situation following the io_uring_cancel_generic's assumption, the data race cannot happen. And in case the assumption is broken, the warning almost always is triggered even if data race happens. So we can ignore the race here.

Right. And that's the point of warnings, they're supposed to be
untriggerable, otherwise there is a problem with the code that
needs to be fixed.

--
Pavel Begunkov