linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 01/51] CPU hotplug: Provide lockless versions of callback registration functions

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Date:	Mon, 10 Feb 2014 18:26:20 -0700
From:	Toshi Kani <toshi.kani@...com>
To:	"Srivatsa S. Bhat" <srivatsa.bhat@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc:	paulus@...ba.org, oleg@...hat.com, rusty@...tcorp.com.au,
	peterz@...radead.org, tglx@...utronix.de,
	akpm@...ux-foundation.org, mingo@...nel.org,
	paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com, tj@...nel.org, walken@...gle.com,
	ego@...ux.vnet.ibm.com, linux@....linux.org.uk,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	"Rafael J. Wysocki" <rafael.j.wysocki@...el.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 01/51] CPU hotplug: Provide lockless versions of
 callback registration functions

On Thu, 2014-02-06 at 03:34 +0530, Srivatsa S. Bhat wrote:
 :
> The problem here is that callback registration takes the locks in one order
> whereas the CPU hotplug operations take the same locks in the opposite order.
> To avoid this issue and to provide a race-free method to register CPU hotplug
> callbacks (along with initialization of already online CPUs), introduce new
> variants of the callback registration APIs that simply register the callbacks
> without holding the cpu_add_remove_lock during the registration. That way,
> we can avoid the ABBA scenario. However, we will need to hold the
> cpu_add_remove_lock throughout the entire critical section, to protect updates
> to the callback/notifier chain.
> 
> This can be achieved by writing the callback registration code as follows:
> 
> 	cpu_maps_update_begin();
> 
> 	for_each_online_cpu(cpu)
> 		init_cpu(cpu);
> 
> 	/* This doesn't take the cpu_add_remove_lock */
> 	__register_cpu_notifier(&foobar_cpu_notifier);
> 
> 	cpu_maps_update_done();
> 
> Note that we can't use get_online_cpus() here instead of cpu_maps_update_begin()
> because the cpu_hotplug.lock is dropped during the invocation of CPU_POST_DEAD
> notifiers, and hence get_online_cpus() cannot provide the necessary
> synchronization to protect the callback/notifier chains against concurrent
> reads and writes. On the other hand, since the cpu_add_remove_lock protects
> the entire hotplug operation (including CPU_POST_DEAD), we can use
> cpu_maps_update_begin/done() to guarantee proper synchronization.
> 
> Also, since cpu_maps_update_begin/done() is like a super-set of
> get/put_online_cpus(), the former naturally protects the critical sections
> from concurrent hotplug operations.

get/put_online_cpus() is a reader-lock and concurrent executions are
allowed among the readers.  They won't be serialized until a cpu
online/offline operation begins.  By replacing this lock with
cpu_maps_update_begin/done(), we now serialize all readers.  Isn't that
too restrictive?  Can we fix the issue with CPU_POST_DEAD and continue
to use get_online_cpus()?

Thanks,
-Toshi



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