• Paul E. McKenney's avatar
    rcu: fix race condition in synchronize_sched_expedited() · db3a8920
    Paul E. McKenney authored
    
    
    The new (early 2010) implementation of synchronize_sched_expedited() uses
    try_stop_cpu() to force a context switch on every CPU.  It also permits
    concurrent calls to synchronize_sched_expedited() to share a single call
    to try_stop_cpu() through use of an atomically incremented
    synchronize_sched_expedited_count variable.  Unfortunately, this is
    subject to failure as follows:
    
    o	Task A invokes synchronize_sched_expedited(), try_stop_cpus()
    	succeeds, but Task A is preempted before getting to the atomic
    	increment of synchronize_sched_expedited_count.
    
    o	Task B also invokes synchronize_sched_expedited(), with exactly
    	the same outcome as Task A.
    
    o	Task C also invokes synchronize_sched_expedited(), again with
    	exactly the same outcome as Tasks A and B.
    
    o	Task D also invokes synchronize_sched_expedited(), but only
    	gets as far as acquiring the mutex within try_stop_cpus()
    	before being preempted, interrupted, or otherwise delayed.
    
    o	Task E also invokes synchronize_sched_expedited(), but only
    	gets to the snapshotting of synchronize_sched_expedited_count.
    
    o	Tasks A, B, and C all increment synchronize_sched_expedited_count.
    
    o	Task E fails to get the mutex, so checks the new value
    	of synchronize_sched_expedited_count.  It finds that the
    	value has increased, so (wrongly) assumes that its work
    	has been done, returning despite there having been no
    	expedited grace period since it began.
    
    The solution is to have the lowest-numbered CPU atomically increment
    the synchronize_sched_expedited_count variable within the
    synchronize_sched_expedited_cpu_stop() function, which is under
    the protection of the mutex acquired by try_stop_cpus().  However, this
    also requires that piggybacking tasks wait for three rather than two
    instances of try_stop_cpu(), because we cannot control the order in
    which the per-CPU callback function occur.
    
    Cc: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
    Cc: Lai Jiangshan <laijs@cn.fujitsu.com>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarPaul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
    db3a8920
rcutree_plugin.h 35.3 KB