linux-kernel - Re: [tip:sched/core] sched: Fix ancient race in do

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Date:	Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:07:11 +0100
From:	Oleg Nesterov <oleg@...hat.com>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	mingo@...hat.com, hpa@...or.com, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	a.p.zijlstra@...llo.nl, y-goto@...fujitsu.com,
	akpm@...ux-foundation.org, tglx@...utronix.de, mingo@...e.hu,
	linux-tip-commits@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [tip:sched/core] sched: Fix ancient race in do_exit()

On 01/28, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
> On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 4:03 AM, tip-bot for Yasunori Goto
> <y-goto@...fujitsu.com> wrote:
> >
> > sched: Fix ancient race in do_exit()
>
> Ugh.
>
> It would be much nicer to just clear the rwsem waiter->task thing
> *after* waking the task up, which would avoid this race entirely,
> afaik.

How? The problem is that wake_up_process(tsk) sees this task in
TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE state (the first "p->state & state" check in
try_to_wake_up), but then this task changes its state to TASK_DEAD
without schedule() and ttwu() does s/TASK_DEAD/TASK_RUNNING/.

IOW, the task doing

	current->state = TASK_A;
	...
	current->state = TASK_B;
	schedule();

can be woken up by try_to_wake_up(TASK_A), despite the fact it
sleeps in TASK_B. do_exit() is only "special" because it is not
easy to handle the spurious wakeup.

> Tell me, why wouldn't that work? rwsem_down_failed_common() does
>
>         /* wait to be given the lock */
>         for (;;) {
>                 if (!waiter.task)
>                         break;
>                ...
>
> so then we wouldn't need the task refcount crap in rwsem either etc,
> and we'd get rid of all races with wakeup.
>
> I wonder why we're clearing that whole waiter->task so early.

I must have missed something. I can't understand how this can help,
and "clear the rwsem waiter->task thing *after* waking" looks
obviously wrong. If we do this, then we can miss the "!!waiter.task"
condition. The loop above actually does

	set_task_state(TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE);

	if (!waiter.task)
		break;
	schedule();

and
	wake_up_process(tsk);
	waiter->task = NULL;

can happen right after set_task_state().

Oleg.

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