Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2012 21:20:52 +0800
From: Fengguang Wu <wfg@linux.intel.com>
To: Yuanhan Liu <yuanhan.liu@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Kay Sievers <kay@vrfy.org>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] printk: use logbuf_mutex_lock to stop syslog_seq
 from going wild
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On Sat, Jun 16, 2012 at 08:59:22PM +0800, Yuanhan Liu wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 16, 2012 at 02:42:38PM +0200, Kay Sievers wrote:
> > On Sat, 2012-06-16 at 12:40 +0800, Yuanhan Liu wrote:
> > > Although syslog_seq and log_next_seq stuff are protected by logbuf_lock
> > > spin log, it's not enough. Say we have two processes A and B, and let
> > > syslog_seq = N, while log_next_seq = N + 1, and the two processes both
> > > come to syslog_print at almost the same time. And No matter which
> > > process get the spin lock first, it will increase syslog_seq by one,
> > > then release spin lock; thus later, another process increase syslog_seq
> > > by one again. In this case, syslog_seq is bigger than syslog_next_seq.
> > > And latter, it would make:
> > >    wait_event_interruptiable(log_wait, syslog != log_next_seq)
> > > don't wait any more even there is no new write comes. Thus it introduce
> > > a infinite loop reading.
> > 
> > Oh, multiple readers on the same shared file descriptor are not useful,
> > but sure, that needs fixing. Thanks for tracking that down!
> > 
> > Looks like the same issue existed in the original code already, it's
> > just that it was granular at a single character level, and not a line,
> > and the seqnum which icreases one-by-one, so the issue was hard to
> > trigger.
> 
> Yes,  I think so, too.
> 
> > 
> > We better make the mutexes interruptible, right?
> 
> Yes, you are right.

It might be better to do them in two standalone patches?
One is a bug fix, the other improves user responsiveness.

Either way, you may add my superficial

Reviewed-by: Fengguang Wu <fengguang.wu@intel.com>

Thanks,
Fengguang
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