linux-kernel - Re: [Xen-devel] Re: [PATCH 09/14] xen/pvticketlock: Xen implementation for PV ticket locks

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:	Wed, 17 Nov 2010 09:41:07 -0800
From:	Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@...p.org>
To:	Jan Beulich <JBeulich@...ell.com>
CC:	Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy.fitzhardinge@...rix.com>,
	Eric Dumazet <dada1@...mosbay.com>, xiyou.wangcong@...il.com,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Nick Piggin <npiggin@...nel.dk>,
	Srivatsa Vaddagiri <vatsa@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Linux Virtualization <virtualization@...ts.linux-foundation.org>,
	Xen-devel <xen-devel@...ts.xensource.com>,
	Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...ymtl.ca>,
	Avi Kivity <avi@...hat.com>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] Re: [PATCH 09/14] xen/pvticketlock: Xen	 implementation
 for PV ticket locks

On 11/17/2010 02:34 AM, Jan Beulich wrote:
>> Actually, on second thoughts, maybe it doesn't matter so much.  The main
>> issue is making sure that the interrupt will make the VCPU drop out of
>> xen_poll_irq() - if it happens before xen_poll_irq(), it should leave
>> the event pending, which will cause the poll to return immediately.  I
>> hope.  Certainly disabling interrupts for some of the function will make
>> it easier to analyze with respect to interrupt nesting.
> That's not my main concern. Instead, what if you get interrupted
> anywhere here, the interrupt handler tries to acquire another
> spinlock and also has to go into the slow path? It'll overwrite part
> or all of the outer context's state.

That doesn't matter if the outer context doesn't end up blocking.  If it
has already blocked then it will unblock as a result of the interrupt;
if it hasn't yet blocked, then the inner context will leave the event
pending and cause it to not block.  Either way, it no longer uses or
needs that per-cpu state: it will return to the spin loop and (maybe)
get re-entered, setting it all up again.

I think there is a problem with the code as posted because it sets up
the percpu data before clearing the pending event, so it can end up
blocking with bad percpu data.

>> Another issue may be making sure the writes and reads of "w->want" and
>> "w->lock" are ordered properly to make sure that xen_unlock_kick() never
>> sees an inconsistent view of the (lock,want) tuple.  The risk being that
>> xen_unlock_kick() sees a random, spurious (lock,want) pairing and sends
>> the kick event to the wrong VCPU, leaving the deserving one hung.
> Yes, proper operation sequence (and barriers) is certainly
> required here. If you allowed nesting, this may even become
> simpler (as you'd have a single write making visible the new
> "head" pointer, after having written all relevant fields of the
> new "head" structure).

Yes, simple nesting should be quite straightforward (ie allowing an
interrupt handler to take some other lock than the one the outer context
is waiting on).

    J
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/