Re: [RFC PATCH 5/6] perf: Fix race in callchains

From: Peter Zijlstra
Date: Fri Jul 02 2010 - 14:08:12 EST


On Thu, 2010-07-01 at 17:36 +0200, Frederic Weisbecker wrote:
> Now that software events don't have interrupt disabled anymore in
> the event path, callchains can nest on any context. So seperating
> nmi and others contexts in two buffers has become racy.
>
> Fix this by providing one buffer per nesting level. Given the size
> of the callchain entries (2040 bytes * 4), we now need to allocate
> them dynamically.

OK so I guess you want to allocate them because 8k per cpu is too much
to always have about?

> +static int get_callchain_buffers(void)
> +{
> + int i;
> + int err = 0;
> + struct perf_callchain_entry_cpus *buf;
> +
> + mutex_lock(&callchain_mutex);
> +
> + if (WARN_ON_ONCE(++nr_callchain_events < 1)) {
> + err = -EINVAL;
> + goto exit;
> + }
> +
> + if (nr_callchain_events > 1)
> + goto exit;
> +
> + for (i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
> + buf = kzalloc(sizeof(*buf), GFP_KERNEL);
> + /* free_event() will clean the rest */
> + if (!buf) {
> + err = -ENOMEM;
> + goto exit;
> + }
> + buf->entries = alloc_percpu(struct perf_callchain_entry);
> + if (!buf->entries) {
> + kfree(buf);
> + err = -ENOMEM;
> + goto exit;
> + }
> + rcu_assign_pointer(callchain_entries[i], buf);
> + }
> +
> +exit:
> + mutex_unlock(&callchain_mutex);
> +
> + return err;
> +}

> +static void put_callchain_buffers(void)
> +{
> + int i;
> + struct perf_callchain_entry_cpus *entry;
> +
> + mutex_lock(&callchain_mutex);
> +
> + if (WARN_ON_ONCE(--nr_callchain_events < 0))
> + goto exit;
> +
> + if (nr_callchain_events > 0)
> + goto exit;
> +
> + for (i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
> + entry = callchain_entries[i];
> + if (entry) {
> + callchain_entries[i] = NULL;
> + call_rcu(&entry->rcu_head, release_callchain_buffers);
> + }
> + }
> +
> +exit:
> + mutex_unlock(&callchain_mutex);
> +}

If you make nr_callchain_events an atomic_t, then you can do the
refcounting outside the mutex. See the existing user of
atomic_dec_and_mutex_lock().

I would also split it in get/put and alloc/free functions for clarity.

I'm not at all sure why you're using RCU though.

> @@ -1895,6 +2072,8 @@ static void free_event(struct perf_event *event)
> atomic_dec(&nr_comm_events);
> if (event->attr.task)
> atomic_dec(&nr_task_events);
> + if (event->attr.sample_type & PERF_SAMPLE_CALLCHAIN)
> + put_callchain_buffers();
> }
>
> if (event->buffer) {

If this was the last even, there's no callchain user left, so nobody can
be here:

> @@ -3480,14 +3610,20 @@ static void perf_event_output(struct perf_event *event, int nmi,
> struct perf_output_handle handle;
> struct perf_event_header header;
>
> + /* protect the callchain buffers */
> + rcu_read_lock();
> +
> perf_prepare_sample(&header, data, event, regs);
>
> if (perf_output_begin(&handle, event, header.size, nmi, 1))
> - return;
> + goto exit;
>
> perf_output_sample(&handle, &header, data, event);
>
> perf_output_end(&handle);
> +
> +exit:
> + rcu_read_unlock();
> }

Rendering that RCU stuff superfluous.


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