[PATCH 4/5] rcutorture: Start rcu_torture_writer() after rcu_torture_reader()
From: Paul E. McKenney
Date: Thu May 08 2025 - 19:45:40 EST
Testing of rcutorture's SRCU-P scenario on a large arm64 system resulted
in rcu_torture_writer() forward-progress failures, but these same tests
passed on x86. After some off-list discussion of possible memory-ordering
causes for these failures, Boqun showed that these were in fact due to
reordering, but by the scheduler, not by the memory system. On x86,
rcu_torture_writer() would have run quickly enough that by the time
the rcu_torture_updown() kthread started, the rcu_torture_current
variable would already be initialized, thus avoiding a bug in which
a NULL value would cause rcu_torture_updown() to do an extra call to
srcu_up_read_fast().
This commit therefore moves creation of the rcu_torture_writer() kthread
after that of the rcu_torture_reader() kthreads. This results in
deterministic failures on x86.
What about the double-srcu_up_read_fast() bug? Boqun has the fix.
But let's also fix the test while we are at it!
Reported-by: Joel Fernandes <joelagnelf@xxxxxxxxxx>
Reported-by: Boqun Feng <boqun.feng@xxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
kernel/rcu/rcutorture.c | 10 +++++-----
1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
diff --git a/kernel/rcu/rcutorture.c b/kernel/rcu/rcutorture.c
index d94b24f19cf59..62f082e24d3b9 100644
--- a/kernel/rcu/rcutorture.c
+++ b/kernel/rcu/rcutorture.c
@@ -4476,11 +4476,6 @@ rcu_torture_init(void)
/* Start up the kthreads. */
rcu_torture_write_types();
- firsterr = torture_create_kthread(rcu_torture_writer, NULL,
- writer_task);
- if (torture_init_error(firsterr))
- goto unwind;
-
if (nrealfakewriters > 0) {
fakewriter_tasks = kcalloc(nrealfakewriters,
sizeof(fakewriter_tasks[0]),
@@ -4516,6 +4511,11 @@ rcu_torture_init(void)
firsterr = rcu_torture_updown_init();
if (torture_init_error(firsterr))
goto unwind;
+ firsterr = torture_create_kthread(rcu_torture_writer, NULL,
+ writer_task);
+ if (torture_init_error(firsterr))
+ goto unwind;
+
nrealnocbers = nocbs_nthreads;
if (WARN_ON(nrealnocbers < 0))
nrealnocbers = 1;
--
2.40.1