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] [day] [month] [year] [list]
Date:	Sun, 17 Aug 2014 08:48:00 -0700
From:	Davidlohr Bueso <dave@...olabs.net>
To:	Steven Stewart-Gallus <sstewartgallus00@...angara.bc.ca>
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-api@...r.kernel.org,
	mtk@...7.org, davidlohr@...com
Subject: Re: Does anyone know when FUTEX_WAIT can fail with EAGAIN?

On Tue, 2014-07-29 at 21:55 +0000, Steven Stewart-Gallus wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm trying to debug a hangup where my program loops with FUTEX_WAIT (actually
> FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE but same thing)  endlessly erring out with EAGAIN. I would
> like to know if anyone on the mailing list knows when FUTEX_WAIT can fail with
> EAGAIN.

You're probably running into the EWOULDBLOCK return -- which on Linux is
just another name for EAGAIN. So if you didn't know this, and were
reading the code related to FUTEX_WAIT, you'd get mislead by this.

The check is there to avoid userspace misusing futexes and screwing up
applications. When the futex_wait() call is issued, a lot can happen in
the kernel before the task is blocked (key hashing, reference counting,
acquire internal spinlock, etc.). At any point while preparing to block,
another userspace thread could have changed the futex value, and thus
the condition for which futex_wait() call was issued in the first place
might no longer be true.

Thanks,
Davidlohr

--
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/

Powered by blists - more mailing lists

Powered by Openwall GNU/*/Linux Powered by OpenVZ