linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH RFC 2/3] locking/rwsem: clear reader-owner on unlock to reduce false positives

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] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <21ef5892-afdf-491e-937f-7821cac63d16@linux.dev>
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2025 09:44:55 +0800
From: Lance Yang <lance.yang@...ux.dev>
To: "Masami Hiramatsu (Google)" <mhiramat@...nel.org>
Cc: akpm@...ux-foundation.org, zi.li@...ux.dev, anna.schumaker@...cle.com,
 boqun.feng@...il.com, joel.granados@...nel.org, jstultz@...gle.com,
 kent.overstreet@...ux.dev, leonylgao@...cent.com,
 linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, longman@...hat.com, mingo@...hat.com,
 mingzhe.yang@...com, peterz@...radead.org, rostedt@...dmis.org,
 senozhatsky@...omium.org, tfiga@...omium.org, will@...nel.org,
 Lance Yang <ioworker0@...il.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC 2/3] locking/rwsem: clear reader-owner on unlock to
 reduce false positives



On 2025/6/24 08:26, Masami Hiramatsu (Google) wrote:
> On Thu, 12 Jun 2025 12:19:25 +0800
> Lance Yang <ioworker0@...il.com> wrote:
> 
>> From: Lance Yang <lance.yang@...ux.dev>
>>
>> When CONFIG_DETECT_HUNG_TASK_BLOCKER is enabled, a stale owner pointer in a
>> reader-owned rwsem can lead to false positives in blocker tracking.
>>
>> To mitigate this, let’s try to clear the owner field on unlock, as a NULL
>> owner is better than a stale one for diagnostics.
> 
> Can we merge this to [PATCH 1/3]? It seems that you removed #ifdef and
> remove it. This means in anyway we need the feature enabled by DEBUG_RWSEMS.

Thanks for the feedback! I see your point about the dependency ;)

Personlly, I'd perfer to keep them separate. The reasoning is that
they addreess two distinct things, and I think splitting them makes
this series clearer and easier to review ;)

Patch #1 focuses on "ownership tracking": Its only job is to make
the existing owner-related helpers (rwsem_owner(), is_rwsem_reader_owned())
globally available when blocker tracking is enabled.

Patch #2, on the other hand, is about "reader-owner cleanup": It
introduces a functional change to the unlock path, trying to clear
the owner field for reader-owned rwsems.

Does this reasoning make sense to you?

Thanks,
Lance

> 
> Thanks,
> 
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Lance Yang <lance.yang@...ux.dev>
>> ---
>>   kernel/locking/rwsem.c | 10 ++++------
>>   1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
>>
>> diff --git a/kernel/locking/rwsem.c b/kernel/locking/rwsem.c
>> index 6cb29442d4fc..a310eb9896de 100644
>> --- a/kernel/locking/rwsem.c
>> +++ b/kernel/locking/rwsem.c
>> @@ -205,14 +205,12 @@ bool is_rwsem_reader_owned(struct rw_semaphore *sem)
>>   		return false;
>>   	return rwsem_test_oflags(sem, RWSEM_READER_OWNED);
>>   }
>> -#endif
>>   
>> -#ifdef CONFIG_DEBUG_RWSEMS
>>   /*
>> - * With CONFIG_DEBUG_RWSEMS configured, it will make sure that if there
>> - * is a task pointer in owner of a reader-owned rwsem, it will be the
>> - * real owner or one of the real owners. The only exception is when the
>> - * unlock is done by up_read_non_owner().
>> + * With CONFIG_DEBUG_RWSEMS or CONFIG_DETECT_HUNG_TASK_BLOCKER configured,
>> + * it will make sure that the owner field of a reader-owned rwsem either
>> + * points to a real reader-owner(s) or gets cleared. The only exception is
>> + * when the unlock is done by up_read_non_owner().
>>    */
>>   static inline void rwsem_clear_reader_owned(struct rw_semaphore *sem)
>>   {
>> -- 
>> 2.49.0
>>
> 
>