Re: [RFC PATCH v5 1/2] hazptr: Implement Hazard Pointers

[Mathieu Desnoyers]

On 2026-06-27 08:56, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> On 2026-06-27 00:14, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 26, 2026 at 11:56:13PM -0400, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> > > On 2026-06-26 19:06, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> [...]
> > > > Initial runs suggest that hazard pointers cannot be acquired by one
> > > > task and released by another.  Is that expected behavior, or is my test
> > > > improperly passing the hazard pointers?  If the latter, we should of
> > > > course document the proper hazard-pointer-passing mechanism.
> > >
> > > This is unexpected. I've looked at your test code quickly and could
> > > not figure out what's wrong though. But it's late. How do you observe
> > > that it fails ?
> >
> > Not an emergency, so your schedule is my schedule.  Especially given
> > that I am mostly taking this coming week off.  And that it took me such
> > a long time to get this torture test done.  ;-)
> >
> > I run either scenario (PREEMPT or NOPREEMPT) with:
> >
> > --bootarg "hazptrtorture.onoff_interval=3333 
> > hazptrtorture.stat_interval=15"
> >
> > I get the following on the console, and things go downhill from there.
> > I get the same thing when I turn off CPU hotplug, for whatever that is
> > worth.
> That OOPS is very instructive. I think I found the root cause.
>
> I need to add an API to hazptr so users wishing to explicitly transfer
> ownership of the hazptr ctx to another thread can do so.
>
> Currently the scheduler hook is responsible for moving the hazptr
> ctx from per-cpu to the backup slots, which makes it entirely movable
> afterwards.
>
> But this assumes the ctx is thread-local. Once you explicitly move
> ownership of that ctx to another thread, you race with the scheduler of
> the original thread.
>
> Let me see what I can do to fix that.
>
> Thanks a lot for the test-case !

Can you try with the attached POC diff ?

Thanks,

Mathieu

--
Mathieu Desnoyers
EfficiOS Inc.
https://www.efficios.comdiff --git a/include/linux/hazptr.h b/include/linux/hazptr.h
index 461f481a480b..d96414575739 100644
--- a/include/linux/hazptr.h
+++ b/include/linux/hazptr.h
@@ -98,6 +98,41 @@ bool hazptr_slot_is_backup(struct hazptr_ctx *ctx, struct hazptr_slot *slot)
 	return slot == &ctx->backup_slot.slot;
 }
 
+/* Internal helper. */
+static inline
+void hazptr_promote_to_backup_slot(struct hazptr_ctx *ctx, struct hazptr_slot *slot)
+{
+	struct hazptr_slot *backup_slot;
+
+	backup_slot = hazptr_chain_backup_slot(ctx);
+	/*
+	 * Move hazard pointer from the per-CPU slot to the
+	 * backup slot. This requires hazard pointer
+	 * synchronize to iterate on per-CPU slots with
+	 * load-acquire before iterating on the overflow list.
+	 */
+	WRITE_ONCE(backup_slot->addr, slot->addr);
+	/*
+	 * store-release orders store to backup slot addr before
+	 * store to per-CPU slot addr.
+	 */
+	smp_store_release(&slot->addr, NULL);
+	/* Use the backup slot for context. */
+	ctx->slot = backup_slot;
+}
+
+static inline
+void hazptr_detach_from_task(struct hazptr_ctx *ctx)
+{
+	struct hazptr_slot *slot;
+
+	guard(preempt)();
+	slot = ctx->slot;
+	if (unlikely(hazptr_slot_is_backup(ctx, slot)))
+		return;
+	hazptr_promote_to_backup_slot(ctx, slot);
+}
+
 static inline
 void hazptr_note_context_switch(void)
 {
@@ -106,27 +141,11 @@ void hazptr_note_context_switch(void)
 
 	for (idx = 0; idx < NR_HAZPTR_PERCPU_SLOTS; idx++) {
 		struct hazptr_slot_item *item = &percpu_slots->items[idx];
-		struct hazptr_slot *slot = &item->slot, *backup_slot;
-		struct hazptr_ctx *ctx;
+		struct hazptr_slot *slot = &item->slot;
 
 		if (!slot->addr)
 			continue;
-		ctx = item->ctx.ctx;
-		backup_slot = hazptr_chain_backup_slot(ctx);
-		/*
-		 * Move hazard pointer from the per-CPU slot to the
-		 * backup slot. This requires hazard pointer
-		 * synchronize to iterate on per-CPU slots with
-		 * load-acquire before iterating on the overflow list.
-		 */
-		WRITE_ONCE(backup_slot->addr, slot->addr);
-		/*
-		 * store-release orders store to backup slot addr before
-		 * store to per-CPU slot addr.
-		 */
-		smp_store_release(&slot->addr, NULL);
-		/* Use the backup slot for context. */
-		ctx->slot = backup_slot;
+		hazptr_promote_to_backup_slot(item->ctx.ctx, slot);
 	}
 }
 
diff --git a/kernel/rcu/hazptrtorture.c b/kernel/rcu/hazptrtorture.c
index 311b387d6ae7..93b383887fc5 100644
--- a/kernel/rcu/hazptrtorture.c
+++ b/kernel/rcu/hazptrtorture.c
@@ -427,6 +427,7 @@ static void hazptr_torture_defer(struct hazptr_pending *hppp, struct torture_ran
 	int cpu = torture_random(trsp) % nr_cpu_ids;
 	struct llist_head *llhp;
 
+	hazptr_detach_from_task(&hppp->hpp_hc);
 	guard(preempt)();
 	cpu = cpumask_next_wrap(cpu, cpu_online_mask);
 	llhp = per_cpu_ptr(&hazptr_pending, cpu);