linux-kernel - Re: try_to_freeze() called with IRQs disabled on ARM

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Date:	Thu, 1 Sep 2011 15:00:00 +0100
From:	Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@....linux.org.uk>
To:	Ulrich Weigand <Ulrich.Weigand@...ibm.com>
Cc:	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
	Mark Brown <broonie@...nsource.wolfsonmicro.com>,
	linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	"Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@...k.pl>, Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>,
	Nicolas Pitre <nicolas.pitre@...aro.org>,
	linaro-toolchain@...ts.linaro.org
Subject: Re: try_to_freeze() called with IRQs disabled on ARM

On Thu, Sep 01, 2011 at 03:41:22PM +0200, Ulrich Weigand wrote:
> The problem now occurs if at point [0.] the target process just
> happened to be blocked in a restartable system call.  For this
> sequence to then work as expected, two things have to happen:
> 
> - at point [3.], the kernel must *not* attempt to restart a
>   system call, even though it thinks we're stopped in a
>   restartable system call
> 
> - at point [5.], the kernel now *must* restart the originally
>   interrupted system call, even though it thinks we're stopped
>   at some breakpoint, and not within a system call
> 
> My patch achieved both these goals, while it would seem your
> patch only solves the first issue, not the second one.  In
> fact, since any interaction with ptrace will always cause the
> TIF_SYS_RESTART flag to be *reset*, and there is no way at all
> to *set* it, there doesn't appear to be any way for GDB to
> achive that second goal.
...
> One way to fix this might be to make the TIF_SYS_RESTART flag
> itself visible to ptrace, so the GDB could save/restore it
> along with the rest of the register set; this would be similar
> to how that problem is handled on other platforms.  However,
> there doesn't appear to be an obvious place for the flag in
> the ptrace register set ...

Thanks for looking at this.

I don't think we can augment the ptrace register set - that would be a
major API change which would immediately break lots of userspace,
causing user stack overflows and such like.

I can't see a way out of this - and given the seriousness of the kernel
side issue (causing kernel warnings), and that your change altered the
strace behaviour (an unintended user-visible change) I think we're going
to have to live with the gdb testcase failing until we can come up with
a better fix for it.

I also wonder what the validity of this behaviour is - there are cases
where you can't do what gdb's trying to do - eg, with a syscall using
a restart block (-ERESTART_RESTARTBLOCK) because the restart information
could be wiped out by a new syscall performed by the function gdb wants
to run.  Or when the program receives a signal for it to handle while
running that function.
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