io_uring : deadlock between io_uring and coredump

From: Haifeng Xu
Date: Tue Feb 25 2025 - 02:43:11 EST


Hi masters,
In our production environment, we found many hung tasks.

Thead A (exit_mm)
...
if (core_state) {
struct core_thread self;

mmap_read_unlock(mm);

self.task = current;
if (self.task->flags & PF_SIGNALED)
self.next = xchg(&core_state->dumper.next, &self);
else
self.task = NULL;
/*
* Implies mb(), the result of xchg() must be visible
* to core_state->dumper.
*/
if (atomic_dec_and_test(&core_state->nr_threads))
complete(&core_state->startup);

for (;;) {
set_current_state(TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE);
if (!self.task) /* see coredump_finish() */
break;
freezable_schedule();
}
__set_current_state(TASK_RUNNING);
mmap_read_lock(mm);
}
...

Thead B (coredump_wait)
...
if (core_waiters > 0) {
struct core_thread *ptr;

freezer_do_not_count();
wait_for_completion(&core_state->startup);
freezer_count();
/*
* Wait for all the threads to become inactive, so that
* all the thread context (extended register state, like
* fpu etc) gets copied to the memory.
*/
ptr = core_state->dumper.next;
while (ptr != NULL) {
wait_task_inactive(ptr->task, 0);
ptr = ptr->next;
}
...

Thead C (io_worker_exit)
...
if (refcount_dec_and_test(&worker->ref))
complete(&worker->ref_done);
wait_for_completion(&worker->ref_done);
...


Thread A is waiting Thead B to finish core dump, but Thead B found that there is still one thread which doesn't
step into exit_mm() to dec core_state->nr_threads. The thead is Thread C, it has submitted a task_work (create_worker_cb)
to Thread B and then wait Thread B to execute or cancel the work. So this leads to a deadlock.

Our kernel vesion is stable 5.15.125, and the commit 1d5f5ea7cb7d ("io-wq: remove worker to owner tw dependency") is included.
when the last io woker exits, it doesn't find any callback. Once scheduled out, it will invoke io_wq_worker_sleeping
to submit a task work to the master thread. If the above guess is right, the commit 1d5f5ea7cb7d won't help.

Can we cancel the io_uring requests before dumping core?

Thanks!