linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v6 02/15] memory-hotplug: check whether all memory blocks are offlined or not when removing memory

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Message-Id: <20130109151140.76982b9e.akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Date:	Wed, 9 Jan 2013 15:11:40 -0800
From:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
To:	Tang Chen <tangchen@...fujitsu.com>
Cc:	rientjes@...gle.com, len.brown@...el.com, benh@...nel.crashing.org,
	paulus@...ba.org, cl@...ux.com, minchan.kim@...il.com,
	kosaki.motohiro@...fujitsu.com, isimatu.yasuaki@...fujitsu.com,
	wujianguo@...wei.com, wency@...fujitsu.com, hpa@...or.com,
	linfeng@...fujitsu.com, laijs@...fujitsu.com, mgorman@...e.de,
	yinghai@...nel.org, glommer@...allels.com, x86@...nel.org,
	linux-mm@...ck.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	linuxppc-dev@...ts.ozlabs.org, linux-acpi@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-s390@...r.kernel.org, linux-sh@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-ia64@...r.kernel.org, cmetcalf@...era.com,
	sparclinux@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v6 02/15] memory-hotplug: check whether all memory
 blocks are offlined or not when removing memory

On Wed, 9 Jan 2013 17:32:26 +0800
Tang Chen <tangchen@...fujitsu.com> wrote:

> We remove the memory like this:
> 1. lock memory hotplug
> 2. offline a memory block
> 3. unlock memory hotplug
> 4. repeat 1-3 to offline all memory blocks
> 5. lock memory hotplug
> 6. remove memory(TODO)
> 7. unlock memory hotplug
> 
> All memory blocks must be offlined before removing memory. But we don't hold
> the lock in the whole operation. So we should check whether all memory blocks
> are offlined before step6. Otherwise, kernel maybe panicked.

Well, the obvious question is: why don't we hold lock_memory_hotplug()
for all of steps 1-4?  Please send the reasons for this in a form which
I can paste into the changelog.


Actually, I wonder if doing this would fix a race in the current
remove_memory() repeat: loop.  That code does a
find_memory_block_hinted() followed by offline_memory_block(), but
afaict find_memory_block_hinted() only does a get_device().  Is the
get_device() sufficiently strong to prevent problems if another thread
concurrently offlines or otherwise alters this memory_block's state?
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