linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/1] sched: prevent divide by zero error in cpu_avg_load_per

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Date:	Sat, 29 Nov 2008 20:50:59 +0100
From:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Gregory Haskins <ghaskins@...ell.com>,
	Steven Rostedt <srostedt@...hat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/1] sched: prevent divide by zero error in
	cpu_avg_load_per_task


* Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org> wrote:

> On Wed, 26 Nov 2008, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> >  {
> >  	struct rq *rq = cpu_rq(cpu);
> > +	unsigned long nr_running = rq->nr_running;
> >  
> > -	if (rq->nr_running)
> > -		rq->avg_load_per_task = rq->load.weight / rq->nr_running;
> > +	if (nr_running)
> > +		rq->avg_load_per_task = rq->load.weight / nr_running;
> >  	else
> >  		rq->avg_load_per_task = 0;
> 
> I don't think this necessarily fixes it.
> 
> There's nothing that keeps gcc from deciding not to reload 
> rq->nr_running.
> 
> Of course, in _practice_, I don't think gcc ever will (if it decides 
> that it will spill, gcc is likely going to decide that it will 
> literally spill the local variable to the stack rather than decide to 
> reload off the pointer), but it's a valid compiler optimization, and it 
> even has a name (rematerialization).
> 
> So I suspect that your patch does fix the bug, but it still leaves the 
> fairly unlikely _potential_ for it to re-appear at some point.
> 
> We have ACCESS_ONCE() as a macro to guarantee that the compiler doesn't 
> rematerialize a pointer access. That also would clarify the fact that 
> we access something unsafe outside a lock.

Okay - i've queued up the fix below, to be on the safe side.

	Ingo

---------------->
>From af6d596fd603219b054c1c90fb16672a9fd441bd Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 20:45:15 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] sched: prevent divide by zero error in cpu_avg_load_per_task, update

Regarding the bug addressed in:

  4cd4262: sched: prevent divide by zero error in cpu_avg_load_per_task

Linus points out that the fix is not complete:

> There's nothing that keeps gcc from deciding not to reload
> rq->nr_running.
>
> Of course, in _practice_, I don't think gcc ever will (if it decides
> that it will spill, gcc is likely going to decide that it will
> literally spill the local variable to the stack rather than decide to
> reload off the pointer), but it's a valid compiler optimization, and
> it even has a name (rematerialization).
>
> So I suspect that your patch does fix the bug, but it still leaves the
> fairly unlikely _potential_ for it to re-appear at some point.
>
> We have ACCESS_ONCE() as a macro to guarantee that the compiler
> doesn't rematerialize a pointer access. That also would clarify
> the fact that we access something unsafe outside a lock.

So make sure our nr_running value is immutable and cannot change
after we check it for nonzero.

Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>
---
 kernel/sched.c |    2 +-
 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

diff --git a/kernel/sched.c b/kernel/sched.c
index 700aa9a..b7480fb 100644
--- a/kernel/sched.c
+++ b/kernel/sched.c
@@ -1453,7 +1453,7 @@ static int task_hot(struct task_struct *p, u64 now, struct sched_domain *sd);
 static unsigned long cpu_avg_load_per_task(int cpu)
 {
 	struct rq *rq = cpu_rq(cpu);
-	unsigned long nr_running = rq->nr_running;
+	unsigned long nr_running = ACCESS_ONCE(rq->nr_running);
 
 	if (nr_running)
 		rq->avg_load_per_task = rq->load.weight / nr_running;
--
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