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From:   "Jason A. Donenfeld" <Jason@zx2c4.com>
To:     ebiederm@xmission.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Cc:     "Jason A. Donenfeld" <Jason@zx2c4.com>
Subject: [PATCH v5] signal: break out of wait loops on kthread_stop()
Date:   Tue, 12 Jul 2022 01:21:23 +0200
Message-Id: <20220711232123.136330-1-Jason@zx2c4.com>
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I was recently surprised to learn that msleep_interruptible(),
wait_for_completion_interruptible_timeout(), and related functions
simply hung when I called kthread_stop() on kthreads using them. The
solution to fixing the case with msleep_interruptible() was more simply
to move to schedule_timeout_interruptible(). Why?

The reason is that msleep_interruptible(), and many functions just like
it, has a loop like this:

        while (timeout && !signal_pending(current))
                timeout = schedule_timeout_interruptible(timeout);

The call to kthread_stop() woke up the thread, so schedule_timeout_
interruptible() returned early, but because signal_pending() returned
true, it went back into another timeout, which was never woken up.

This wait loop pattern is common to various pieces of code, and I
suspect that the subtle misuse in a kthread that caused a deadlock in
the code I looked at last week is also found elsewhere.

So this commit causes signal_pending() to return true when
kthread_stop() is called, by setting TIF_NOTIFY_SIGNAL.

The same also probably applies to the similar kthread_park()
functionality, but that can be addressed later, as its semantics are
slightly different.

Cc: Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Signed-off-by: Jason A. Donenfeld <Jason@zx2c4.com>
---
Changes v4->v5:
- Use set_tsk_thread_flag instead of test_and_set_tsk_thread_flag. Must
  have been a copy and paste mistarget.
Changes v3->v4:
- Don't address park() for now.
- Don't bother clearing the flag, since the task is about to be freed
  anyway.

 kernel/kthread.c | 1 +
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)

diff --git a/kernel/kthread.c b/kernel/kthread.c
index 3c677918d8f2..7243a010f433 100644
--- a/kernel/kthread.c
+++ b/kernel/kthread.c
@@ -704,6 +704,7 @@ int kthread_stop(struct task_struct *k)
 	kthread = to_kthread(k);
 	set_bit(KTHREAD_SHOULD_STOP, &kthread->flags);
 	kthread_unpark(k);
+	set_tsk_thread_flag(k, TIF_NOTIFY_SIGNAL);
 	wake_up_process(k);
 	wait_for_completion(&kthread->exited);
 	ret = kthread->result;
-- 
2.35.1