linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] workqueue: Fix memory ordering race in queue

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Date:   Tue, 16 Aug 2022 15:28:50 +0900
From:   Hector Martin <marcan@...can.st>
To:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:     Herbert Xu <herbert@...dor.apana.org.au>,
        Will Deacon <will@...nel.org>, Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>,
        peterz@...radead.org, jirislaby@...nel.org, maz@...nel.org,
        mark.rutland@....com, boqun.feng@...il.com,
        catalin.marinas@....com, oneukum@...e.com,
        roman.penyaev@...fitbricks.com, asahi@...ts.linux.dev,
        linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        stable@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] workqueue: Fix memory ordering race in queue_work*()

On 2022/08/16 14:52, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> I think I understand *why* it's broken - it looks like a "harmless"
> optimization. After all, if the bitop doesn't do anything, there's
> nothing to order it with.
> 
> It makes a certain amount of sense - as long as you don't think about
> it too hard.
> 
> The reason it is completely and utterly broken is that it's not
> actually just "the bitop doesn't do anything". Even when it doesn't
> change the bit value, just the ordering of the read of the old bit
> value can be meaningful, exactly for that case of "I added more work
> to the queue, I need to set the bit to tell the consumers, and if I'm
> the first person to set the bit I may need to wake the consumer up".

This is the same reason I argued queue_work() itself needs to have a
similar guarantee, even when it doesn't queue work (and I updated the
doc to match). If test_and_set_bit() is used in this kind of context
often in the kernel, clearly the current implementation/doc clashes with
that.

As I said, I don't have any particular beef in this fight, but this is
horribly broken on M1/2 right now, so I'll send a patch to change the
bitops instead and you all can fight it out over which way is correct :)

-- 
Hector Martin (marcan@...can.st)
Public Key: https://mrcn.st/pub