linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 3/3] kernel/workqueue: Suppress a false positive lockdep complaint

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Date:   Thu, 25 Oct 2018 16:21:25 -0400
From:   "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <tytso@....edu>
To:     Johannes Berg <johannes@...solutions.net>
Cc:     Bart Van Assche <bvanassche@....org>, Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>,
        "linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Christoph Hellwig <hch@....de>,
        Sagi Grimberg <sagi@...mberg.me>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 3/3] kernel/workqueue: Suppress a false positive lockdep
 complaint

On Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 09:59:38PM +0200, Johannes Berg wrote:
> > So, thinking about this more, can you guarantee (somehow) that the
> > workqueue is empty at this point?
> 
> (I hadn't looked at the code then - obviously that's guaranteed)

We can guarantee it from someone who is looking at the code path.  In
dio_set_defer_completion:

	if (!sb->s_dio_done_wq)
		return sb_init_dio_done_wq(sb);

And then sb_init_dio_done_wq:

int sb_init_dio_done_wq(struct super_block *sb)
{
	struct workqueue_struct *old;
	struct workqueue_struct *wq = alloc_workqueue("dio/%s",
						      WQ_MEM_RECLAIM, 0,
						      sb->s_id);
	if (!wq)
		return -ENOMEM;
	/*
	 * This has to be atomic as more DIOs can race to create the workqueue
	 */
	old = cmpxchg(&sb->s_dio_done_wq, NULL, wq);
	/* Someone created workqueue before us? Free ours... */
	if (old)
		destroy_workqueue(wq);
	return 0;
}

The race found in the syzbot reproducer has multiple threads all
running DIO writes at the same time.  So we have multiple threads
calling sb_init_dio_done_wq, but all but one will lose the race, and
then call destry_workqueue on the freshly created (but never used)
workqueue.

We could replace the destroy_workqueue(wq) with a
"I_solemnly_swear_this_workqueue_has_never_been_used_please_destroy(wq)".

Or, as Tejun suggested, "destroy_workqueue_skip_drain(wq)", but there is
no way for the workqueue code to know whether the caller was using the
interface correctly.  So this basically becomes a philosophical
question about whether or not we trust the caller to be correct or
not.

I don't see an obvious way that we can test to make sure the workqueue
is never used without actually taking a performance.  Am I correct
that we would need to take the wq->mutex before we can mess with the
wq->flags field?

					- Ted