[PATCH 0/2] initial while_each_thread() fixes

From: Oleg Nesterov
Date: Mon Dec 02 2013 - 10:23:29 EST


Hello.

This was reported several times, I believe the first report is
http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=127688978121665. Hmm, 3 years
ago. The lockless while_each_thread() is racy and broken, almost
every user can loop forever.

Recently people started to report they actually hit this problem in
oom_kill.c. This doesn't really matter and I can be wrong, but in
fact I do not think they really hit this race, it is very unlikely.
Another problem with while_each_thread() is that it is very easy
to use it wrongly, and oom_kill.c is the good example.

I came to conclusion that it is practically impossible to send a
single series which fixes all problems, too many different users.

So 1/2 adds the new for_each_thread() interface, and 2/2 fixes oom
kill as an example.

We obviously need a lot more changes like 2/2 before we can kill
while_each_thread() and task_struct->thread_group, but I hope they
will be straighforward. And in fact I hope that task->thread_group
can go away before we change all users of while_each_thread().

David, et al, I din't actually test 2/2, I do not know how. Please
review, although it looks simple.

Oleg.

include/linux/init_task.h | 2 ++
include/linux/sched.h | 12 ++++++++++++
kernel/exit.c | 1 +
kernel/fork.c | 7 +++++++
mm/oom_kill.c | 37 ++++++++++++++++++++-----------------
5 files changed, 42 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-)

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