Re: [PATCH] locking/qrwlock: Fix ordering in queued_write_lock_slowpath

From: Waiman Long
Date: Thu Apr 15 2021 - 11:16:44 EST


On 4/15/21 10:25 AM, Ali Saidi wrote:
While this code is executed with the wait_lock held, a reader can
acquire the lock without holding wait_lock. The writer side loops
checking the value with the atomic_cond_read_acquire(), but only truly
acquires the lock when the compare-and-exchange is completed
successfully which isn’t ordered. The other atomic operations from this
point are release-ordered and thus reads after the lock acquisition can
be completed before the lock is truly acquired which violates the
guarantees the lock should be making.

Fixes: b519b56e378ee ("locking/qrwlock: Use atomic_cond_read_acquire() when spinning in qrwloc")
Signed-off-by: Ali Saidi <alisaidi@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
---
kernel/locking/qrwlock.c | 4 ++--
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/kernel/locking/qrwlock.c b/kernel/locking/qrwlock.c
index 4786dd271b45..10770f6ac4d9 100644
--- a/kernel/locking/qrwlock.c
+++ b/kernel/locking/qrwlock.c
@@ -73,8 +73,8 @@ void queued_write_lock_slowpath(struct qrwlock *lock)
/* When no more readers or writers, set the locked flag */
do {
- atomic_cond_read_acquire(&lock->cnts, VAL == _QW_WAITING);
- } while (atomic_cmpxchg_relaxed(&lock->cnts, _QW_WAITING,
+ atomic_cond_read_relaxed(&lock->cnts, VAL == _QW_WAITING);
+ } while (atomic_cmpxchg_acquire(&lock->cnts, _QW_WAITING,
_QW_LOCKED) != _QW_WAITING);
unlock:
arch_spin_unlock(&lock->wait_lock);

I think the original code isn't wrong. The read_acquire provides the acquire barrier for cmpxchg. Because of conditional dependency, the wait_lock unlock won't happen until the cmpxchg succeeds. Without doing a read_acquire, there may be a higher likelihood that the cmpxchg may fail.

Anyway, I will let Will or Peter chime in on this as I am not as proficient as them on this topic.

Cheers,
Longman