linux-kernel - Re: [RFC 2/2] rcu: Remove ->dynticks_nmi_nesting from struct rcu

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Date:   Mon, 25 Jun 2018 16:32:13 -0700
From:   Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>
To:     Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>
Cc:     "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
        joel@...lfernandes.org, Byungchul Park <byungchul.park@....com>,
        byungchul park <max.byungchul.park@...il.com>,
        Lai Jiangshan <jiangshanlai@...il.com>,
        Josh Triplett <josh@...htriplett.org>,
        Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, kernel-team@....com,
        Andrew Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC 2/2] rcu: Remove ->dynticks_nmi_nesting from struct rcu_dynticks

On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 3:15 PM Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 25 Jun 2018 13:47:08 -0700
> "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 04:25:57PM -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> > > On Mon, 25 Jun 2018 09:39:51 -0700
> > > Joel Fernandes <joel@...lfernandes.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > > For whatever its worth, I made some notes of what I understood from reading
> > > > the code and old posts because I was sure I would otherwise forget
> > > > everything:
> > > > http://www.joelfernandes.org/linuxinternals/2018/06/15/rcu-dynticks.html
> > >
> > > Nice write up. I may point some people to this ;-)
> > >
> > > Anyway "complications due to nested NMIs (yes NMIs can nest!)"
> > >
> > > What arch allows for NMIs to nest. Because we don't let that happen on
> > > x86, and there's code that I know of that is called by NMIs that is not
> > > re-entrant, and can crash if we allow for NMIs to nest. For example
> > > "in_nmi()" will not show that we are in_nmi() if we allow for nesting
> > > of NMIs. It has a single bit that gets incremented when we enter NMI
> > > code, and cleared when we leave it.
> >
> > Last I checked with Andy Lutomirski, there are a number of things that,
> > though not NMIs, act like NMIs and that can interrupt each others'
> > handlers.  This is on x86.
> >
>
> Perhaps things like MCEs, but they don't call nmi_enter(). And usually
> when something does, it probably puts the machine into an unstable
> state. Getting RCU right, may be the least of the worries.
>
> You may want to ask Andy if there's legitimate interruptions of NMIs
> that doesn't mean "please reboot as soon as possible"?
>

Yes, sadly.  CPU A gets an NMI.  While processing it, CPU B has user
code access a faulty NVDIMM address, causing CPU B to generate a
machine check.  CPU A also gets a machine check because someone at
Intel thought it was a good idea.  CPU A will mostly ignore the
machine check, but it still happens.

I think it's reasonable to say that nmi_enter() won't nest, but I
don't see how we can avoid rcu_nmi_enter() nesting.