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Message-ID: <20091027140507.GN29477@redhat.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:05:07 +0200
From: Gleb Natapov <gleb@...hat.com>
To: Gregory Haskins <gregory.haskins@...il.com>
Cc: Gregory Haskins <ghaskins@...ell.com>, kvm@...r.kernel.org,
"alacrityvm-devel@...ts.sourceforge.net"
<alacrityvm-devel@...ts.sourceforge.net>,
linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com
Subject: Re: [KVM PATCH v3 1/3] KVM: fix race in irq_routing logic
On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 10:00:15AM -0400, Gregory Haskins wrote:
> Gregory Haskins wrote:
> > Gleb Natapov wrote:
> >> On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 12:21:57PM -0400, Gregory Haskins wrote:
> >>> The current code suffers from the following race condition:
> >>>
> >>> thread-1 thread-2
> >>> -----------------------------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> kvm_set_irq() {
> >>> rcu_read_lock()
> >>> irq_rt = rcu_dereference(table);
> >>> rcu_read_unlock();
> >>>
> >>> kvm_set_irq_routing() {
> >>> mutex_lock();
> >>> irq_rt = table;
> >>> rcu_assign_pointer();
> >>> mutex_unlock();
> >>> synchronize_rcu();
> >>>
> >>> kfree(irq_rt);
> >>>
> >>> irq_rt->entry->set(); /* bad */
> >>>
> >> This is not what happens. irq_rt is never accessed outside read-side
> >> critical section.
> >
> > Sorry, I was generalizing to keep the comments short. I figured it
> > would be clear what I was actually saying, but realize in retrospect
> > that I was a little ambiguous.
>
> Here is a revised problem statement
>
> thread-1 thread-2
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>
> kvm_set_irq() {
> rcu_read_lock()
> irq_rt = rcu_dereference(table);
> entry_cache = get_entries(irq_rt);
> rcu_read_unlock();
>
> invalidate_entries(irq_rt);
>
> for_each_entry(entry_cache)
> entry->set(); /* bad */
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> "invalidate_entries()" may be any operation that deletes an entry at
> run-time (doesn't exist today), or as the guest is shutting down. As
> far as I can tell, the current code does not protect us from either
> condition, and my proposed patch protects us from both. Did I miss
> anything?
>
Yes. What happened to irq_rt is completely irrelevant at the point you
marked /* bad */.
--
Gleb.
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