linux-kernel - [PATCH 2/2] signal: document the RCU protection of ->sighand

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Message-ID: <20140922164440.GA28942@redhat.com>
Date:	Mon, 22 Sep 2014 18:44:40 +0200
From:	Oleg Nesterov <oleg@...hat.com>
To:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Rik van Riel <riel@...hat.com>,
	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH 2/2] signal: document the RCU protection of ->sighand

__cleanup_sighand() frees sighand without RCU grace period. This is
correct but this looks "obviously buggy" and constantly confuses the
readers, add the comments to explain how this works.

Signed-off-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@...hat.com>
---
 kernel/fork.c   |    5 ++++-
 kernel/signal.c |   12 +++++++++++-
 2 files changed, 15 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/kernel/fork.c b/kernel/fork.c
index 1380d8a..2dd9f1d 100644
--- a/kernel/fork.c
+++ b/kernel/fork.c
@@ -1017,11 +1017,14 @@ void __cleanup_sighand(struct sighand_struct *sighand)
 {
 	if (atomic_dec_and_test(&sighand->count)) {
 		signalfd_cleanup(sighand);
+		/*
+		 * sighand_cachep is SLAB_DESTROY_BY_RCU so we can free it
+		 * without an RCU grace period, see __lock_task_sighand().
+		 */
 		kmem_cache_free(sighand_cachep, sighand);
 	}
 }
 
-
 /*
  * Initialize POSIX timer handling for a thread group.
  */
diff --git a/kernel/signal.c b/kernel/signal.c
index 61a1f55..9562a4f 100644
--- a/kernel/signal.c
+++ b/kernel/signal.c
@@ -1272,7 +1272,17 @@ struct sighand_struct *__lock_task_sighand(struct task_struct *tsk,
 		sighand = rcu_dereference(tsk->sighand);
 		if (unlikely(sighand == NULL))
 			break;
-
+		/*
+		 * This sighand can be already freed and even reused, but
+		 * we rely on SLAB_DESTROY_BY_RCU and sighand_ctor() which
+		 * initializes ->siglock: this slab can't go away, it has
+		 * the same object type, ->siglock can't be reinitialized.
+		 *
+		 * We need to ensure that tsk->sighand is still the same
+		 * after we take the lock, we can race with de_thread() or
+		 * __exit_signal(). In the latter case the next iteration
+		 * must see ->sighand == NULL.
+		 */
 		spin_lock_irqsave(&sighand->siglock, *flags);
 		if (likely(sighand == tsk->sighand))
 			break;
-- 
1.5.5.1

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