Date: Sat, 21 May 2011 16:54:08 -0700
From: "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
To: Paul Bolle <pebolle@tiscali.nl>
Cc: Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com>, Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>,
        linux kernel mailing list <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: Mysterious CFQ crash and RCU
Message-ID: <20110521235408.GK2271@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Reply-To: paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com
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On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 12:23:50AM +0200, Paul Bolle wrote:
> Paul,
> 
> On Sat, 2011-05-21 at 14:00 -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 06:24:04PM -0400, Vivek Goyal wrote:
> > It does look like a tough one!
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> > > Is it possible? We have looked at the code many a times and we think
> > > that rcu locking around it is fine. Is it possible that a call_rcu()
> > > can fire before rcu grace period is over.
> > 
> > If it does, that would be a bug in RCU.
> > 
> > > I had put a debug patch in CFQ (details are in bugzilla) and I can
> > > see that after decoupling the object from the hash list, it got
> > > freed while we were still under rcu_read_lock().
> > > 
> > > Is there any known issue or is there any quick tip on how can I 
> > > go about debugging it further from rcu point of view.
> > 
> > First for uses of RCU:
> > 
> > o	One thing to try would be CONFIG_PROVE_RCU, which could help
> > 	find missing rcu_read_lock()s and similar.  Some years back, it
> > 	used to be the case that spin_lock() implied rcu_read_lock(),
> > 	but it no longer does.	There might still be some cases where
> > 	spin_lock() needs to have an rcu_read_lock() added.
> > 
> > o	There are a few entries in the bugzilla mentioning that elements
> > 	are being removed more often than expected.  There is a config
> > 	option CONFIG_DEBUG_OBJECTS_RCU_HEAD that complains if the same
> > 	object is passed to call_rcu() before the grace period ends for
> > 	the first round.
> > 
> > o	Try switching between CONFIG_TREE_RCU and CONFIG_TREE_PREEMPT_RCU.
> > 	These two settings are each sensitive to different forms of abuse.
> > 	For example, if you have CONFIG_PREEMPT=n and CONFIG_TREE_RCU=y,
> > 	illegally placing a synchronize_rcu() -- or anything else that
> > 	blocks -- in an RCU read-side critical section will silently
> > 	partition that RCU read-side critical section.  In contrast,
> > 	CONFIG_TREE_PREEMPT_RCU=y will complain about this.
> > 
> > Second, for RCU itself, CONFIG_RCU_TRACE enables counter-based tracing
> > in RCU.  Sampling each of the files in the debugfs directory "rcu"
> > before and after the badness (if possible) could help me see if anything
> > untoward is happening.
> 
> Before we go down that route, I'd like to note that I seem to be unable
> to reproduce this Oops under v2.6.39 (either using the first v2.6.39 rpm
> for i686 shipped for Fedora Rawhide, or two versions of that rpm I built
> locally).
> 
> Is anyone able to spot one or more commits in v2.6.39-rc7..v2.6.39 that
> might have fixed this Oops? Or did my chance of hitting this Oops,
> somehow, just got a lot smaller in v.2.6.39?

5f45c69589b7d ("read_lock() does not always imply rcu_read_lock()") might
well be a fix.

> Please note that I have tried to reproduce this Oops very often, using
> quite a number of kernels, so there's a non-zero chance I tricked myself
> in seeing a pattern where there actually is none.

Understood -- races can be a bit frustrating.  How long should you run
before you conclude that you fixed it?  ;-)

							Thanx, Paul
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