Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 12:32:30 -0700
From: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
To: will_schmidt@vnet.ibm.com
Cc: Anton Blanchard <anton@samba.org>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
       linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org, Oleg Nesterov <oleg@tv-sign.ru>,
       "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/3] [PATCH i386] during VM oom condition, kill all
 threads in process group
Message-Id: <20070608123230.520655f5.akpm@linux-foundation.org>
In-Reply-To: <1181330358.21409.31.camel@farscape.rchland.ibm.com>
References: <20070605174831.21740.33119.stgit@farscape.rchland.ibm.com>
	<20070607153459.2a1b3230.akpm@linux-foundation.org>
	<20070607231621.GB32549@kryten>
	<20070607171018.d51fc5da.akpm@linux-foundation.org>
	<1181330358.21409.31.camel@farscape.rchland.ibm.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
Content-Length: 1778
Lines: 42

On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:19:18 -0500
Will Schmidt <will_schmidt@vnet.ibm.com> wrote:

> > > > zap_other_threads() requires tasklist_lock.
> 
> Yup, I missed that.   Thanks for pointing it out.
> 
> > > > 
> > > > If we're going to do this then we should probably create some new function
> > > > (with a better name) which takes tasklsit_lock and then calls
> > > > zap_other_threads().
> 
> I expect this will be a write_lock_irq() since zap_other_threads will be
> doing a bit more than just reading the task info.

No, I think read_lock() will be sufficient.

In fact, it's probably the case that rcu_read_lock() is now sufficient
locking coverage for zap_other_threads() (cc's people).

It had better be, because do_group_exit() forgot to take tasklist_lock.  It
is perhaps relying upon spin_lock()'s hidden rcu_read_lock() properties
without so much as a code comment, which would be somewhat nasty of it.

You could perhaps just call do_group_exit() from within the fault handler,
btw.

> This will be down in a do-page-fault failure path (see
> arch/*/mm/fault.c).  I wonder if calling write_lock is going to be safe,
> or if its possible to get into a deadlock?  i.e. should I branch back up
> to the survive: label if I can't take the lock?  Would that even be
> sufficient? or is it not an issue here? 

You can take the lock in the fault handler.  Nobody should be getting
pagefaults while holding tasklist_lock.  (Well, a vmalloc fault might, but
that's a special-case which doesn't allocate memory or anything like that).

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/