Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2012 17:15:30 -0700
From: "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
To: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
Cc: "Paul E. McKenney" <paul.mckenney@linaro.org>,
        Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        "Srivatsa S. Bhat" <srivatsa.bhat@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: Lockdep complains about commit 1331e7a1bb ("rcu: Remove
 _rcu_barrier() dependency on __stop_machine()")
Message-ID: <20121003001530.GF2465@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Reply-To: paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com
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On Wed, Oct 03, 2012 at 01:48:21AM +0200, Jiri Kosina wrote:
> On Tue, 2 Oct 2012, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> 
> > Indeed.  Slab seems to be doing an rcu_barrier() in a CPU hotplug 
> > notifier, which doesn't sit so well with rcu_barrier() trying to exclude 
> > CPU hotplug events.  I could go back to the old approach, but it is 
> > significantly more complex.  I cannot say that I am all that happy about 
> > anyone calling rcu_barrier() from a CPU hotplug notifier because it 
> > doesn't help CPU hotplug latency, but that is a separate issue.
> > 
> > But the thing is that rcu_barrier()'s assumptions work just fine if either
> > (1) it excludes hotplug operations or (2) if it is called from a hotplug
> > notifier.  You see, either way, the CPU cannot go away while rcu_barrier()
> > is executing.  So the right way to resolve this seems to be to do the
> > get_online_cpus() only if rcu_barrier() is -not- executing in the context
> > of a hotplug notifier.  Should be fixable without too much hassle...
> 
> Sorry, I don't think I understand what you are proposing just yet.
> 
> If I understand it correctly, you are proposing to introduce some magic 
> into _rcu_barrier() such as (pseudocode of course):
> 
> 	if (!being_called_from_hotplug_notifier_callback)
> 		get_online_cpus()
> 
> How does that protect from the scenario I've outlined before though?
> 
> 	CPU 0                           CPU 1
> 	kmem_cache_destroy()
> 	mutex_lock(slab_mutex)
> 					_cpu_up()
> 					cpu_hotplug_begin()
> 					mutex_lock(cpu_hotplug.lock)
> 	rcu_barrier()
> 	_rcu_barrier()
> 	get_online_cpus()
> 	mutex_lock(cpu_hotplug.lock)
> 	 (blocks, CPU 1 has the mutex)
> 					__cpu_notify()
> 					mutex_lock(slab_mutex)	
> 
> CPU 0 grabs both locks anyway (it's not running from notifier callback). 
> CPU 1 grabs both locks as well, as there is no _rcu_barrier() being called 
> from notifier callback either.
> 
> What did I miss?

You didn't miss anything, I was suffering a failure to read carefully.

So my next stupid question is "Why can't kmem_cache_destroy drop
slab_mutex early?" like the following:

	void kmem_cache_destroy(struct kmem_cache *cachep)
	{
		BUG_ON(!cachep || in_interrupt());

		/* Find the cache in the chain of caches. */
		get_online_cpus();
		mutex_lock(&slab_mutex);
		/*
		 * the chain is never empty, cache_cache is never destroyed
		 */
		list_del(&cachep->list);
		if (__cache_shrink(cachep)) {
			slab_error(cachep, "Can't free all objects");
			list_add(&cachep->list, &slab_caches);
			mutex_unlock(&slab_mutex);
			put_online_cpus();
			return;
		}
		mutex_unlock(&slab_mutex);

		if (unlikely(cachep->flags & SLAB_DESTROY_BY_RCU))
			rcu_barrier();

		__kmem_cache_destroy(cachep);
		put_online_cpus();
	}

Or did I miss some reason why __kmem_cache_destroy() needs that lock?
Looks to me like it is just freeing now-disconnected memory.

							Thanx, Paul

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