[PATCH rcu/urgent 0/6] Fixes for RCU/scheduler/irq-threadstrainwreck

From: Paul E. McKenney
Date: Tue Jul 19 2011 - 20:17:47 EST


Hello!

This patch set contains fixes for a trainwreck involving RCU, the
scheduler, and threaded interrupts. This trainwreck involved RCU failing
to properly protect one of its bit fields, use of RCU by the scheduler
from portions of irq_exit() where in_irq() returns false, uses of the
scheduler by RCU colliding with uses of RCU by the scheduler, threaded
interrupts exercising the problematic portions of irq_exit() more heavily,
and so on. The patches are as follows:

1. Properly protect current->rcu_read_unlock_special().
Lack of protection was causing RCU to recurse on itself, which
in turn resulted in deadlocks involving RCU and the scheduler.
This affects only RCU_BOOST=y configurations.
2. Streamline code produced by __rcu_read_unlock(). This one is
an innocent bystander that is being carried due to conflicts
with other patches. (A later version will likely merge it
with #3 below.)
3. Make __rcu_read_unlock() delay counting the per-task
->rcu_read_lock_nesting variable to zero until all cleanup for the
just-ended RCU read-side critical section has completed. This
prevents a number of other cases that could result in deadlock
due to self recursion. This affects only TREE_PREEMPT_RCU=y
configurations.
4. Make scheduler_ipi() correctly identify itself as being
in_irq() when it needs to do anything that might involve RCU,
thus enabling RCU to avoid yet another class of potential
self-recursions and deadlocks. This affects PREEMPT_RCU=y
configurations.
5. Make irq_exit() inform RCU when it is invoking the scheduler
in situations where in_irq() would return false, thus
allowing RCU to correctly avoid self-recursion. This affects
TREE_PREEMPT_RCU=y configurations.
6. Make __lock_task_sighand() execute the entire RCU read-side
critical section with irqs disabled. (An experimental patch at
http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=131110647222185 might possibly
make it legal to have an RCU read-side critical section where
the rcu_read_unlock() is executed with interrupts disabled,
but where some protion of the RCU read-side critical section
was preemptible.) This affects TREE_PREEMPT_RCU=y configurations.

TINY_PREEMPT_RCU will also need a few of these changes, but in the
meantime this patch stack helps organize things better for testing.
These are also available from the following subject-to-rebase git branch:

git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/paulmck/linux-2.6-rcu.git rcu/urgent

Thanx, Paul

------------------------------------------------------------------------

b/include/linux/sched.h | 3 +++
b/kernel/rcutree_plugin.h | 3 ++-
b/kernel/sched.c | 44 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------
b/kernel/signal.c | 16 +++++++++++-----
b/kernel/softirq.c | 12 ++++++++++--
kernel/rcutree_plugin.h | 45 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------------
6 files changed, 96 insertions(+), 27 deletions(-)
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