linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] fs: Safe rcu access to hlist.

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Date:   Mon, 20 Nov 2017 21:01:32 +0100
From:   Luc Van Oostenryck <luc.vanoostenryck@...il.com>
To:     Tim Hansen <devtimhansen@...il.com>
Cc:     Al Viro <viro@...IV.linux.org.uk>, linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        alexander.levin@....verizon.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH] fs: Safe rcu access to hlist.

On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 01:55:35PM -0500, Tim Hansen wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 19, 2017 at 09:28:49PM +0000, Al Viro wrote:
> > On Sun, Nov 19, 2017 at 03:02:10PM -0500, Tim Hansen wrote:
> > > Adds hlist_first_rcu and hlist_next_rcu for safe access
> > > to the hlist in seq_hlist_next_rcu.
> > > 
> > > Found on linux-next branch, tag next-20171117 with sparse.
> > 
> > Frankly, I'm tempted to take sparse RCU annotations out for good -
> > they are far too noisy and I'm not sure sparse is suitable for the
> > analysis needed to prove safety of that stuff, so unless you (or
> > somebody else) figures out how to use them in a reasonably clean
> > way, we'd probably be better off just dropping them.
> 
> Can you detail how sparse is insufficent to prove RCU saftey? 
> I'm not an RCU expert by any means but I don't know of any 
> complaints regarding the capabilities of sparse to detect RCU
> correctness in the community.  That however could just be my 
> own ignornace. As far as I know these sparse RCU annotations 
> are used widely across other subsystems.
> 
> I'd defer to other people more knowledgable on sparse to chime 
> in regarding the "correctness" of it's capability on the RCU.

Hi,

[not knowing much about RCU's needs here but knowing quite a bit
 about sparse]

I think the issue here is mainly about the use of the address space.
For kernel space vs. __user vs. __iomem, address space works quite
well: a pointer points either to a kernel address or to userland
or to some device or bus memory. It's an exclusive thing.
So you can annotate the pointer with __user or __iomem, it's a 
kind of extension of the typing system, and you can let sparse
do its job.
For the endianness annotations, it's very similar: a variable
either points to a native value or to a big or little endian
value, only one can (should!) be correct. The __be32/__le32/...
annotations are once again an extension of the typing system.
Fine for sparse.

For RCU, the impression I have is that things are completly
different: it's more a question of transient state than
something exclusive. The choice to use another address space
imposes the need of a lot of artificial annotation. And to 
make sparse able to do its job, a lot of artificial helpers
are needed to cast variable in and out of the __rcu address
space.

-- Luc Van Oostenryck