Re: [PATCH RFC 2/3] locking/rwsem: clear reader-owner on unlock to reduce false positives

From: Google
Date: Mon Jun 23 2025 - 23:54:11 EST


On Tue, 24 Jun 2025 09:44:55 +0800
Lance Yang <lance.yang@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
>
> On 2025/6/24 08:26, Masami Hiramatsu (Google) wrote:
> > On Thu, 12 Jun 2025 12:19:25 +0800
> > Lance Yang <ioworker0@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> From: Lance Yang <lance.yang@xxxxxxxxx>
> >>
> >> When CONFIG_DETECT_HUNG_TASK_BLOCKER is enabled, a stale owner pointer in a
> >> reader-owned rwsem can lead to false positives in blocker tracking.
> >>
> >> To mitigate this, let’s try to clear the owner field on unlock, as a NULL
> >> owner is better than a stale one for diagnostics.
> >
> > Can we merge this to [PATCH 1/3]? It seems that you removed #ifdef and
> > remove it. This means in anyway we need the feature enabled by DEBUG_RWSEMS.
>
> Thanks for the feedback! I see your point about the dependency ;)
>
> Personlly, I'd perfer to keep them separate. The reasoning is that
> they addreess two distinct things, and I think splitting them makes
> this series clearer and easier to review ;)
>
> Patch #1 focuses on "ownership tracking": Its only job is to make
> the existing owner-related helpers (rwsem_owner(), is_rwsem_reader_owned())
> globally available when blocker tracking is enabled.
>
> Patch #2, on the other hand, is about "reader-owner cleanup": It
> introduces a functional change to the unlock path, trying to clear
> the owner field for reader-owned rwsems.

But without clearing the owner, the owner information can be
broken, right? Since CONFIG_DEBUG_RWSEMS is working as it is,
I think those cannot be decoupled. For example, comparing the
result of both DETECT_HUNG_TASK_BLOCKER and DEBUG_RWSEMS are
enabled and only DETECT_HUNG_TASK_BLOCKER is enabled, the
result is different.

>
> Does this reasoning make sense to you?

Sorry, no. I think "reader-owner cleanup" is a part of "ownership
tracking" as DEBUG_RWSEMS does (and that keeps consistency of
the ownership tracking behavior same as DEBUG_RWSEM).

Thank you,

>
> Thanks,
> Lance
>
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> >>
> >> Signed-off-by: Lance Yang <lance.yang@xxxxxxxxx>
> >> ---
> >> kernel/locking/rwsem.c | 10 ++++------
> >> 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
> >>
> >> diff --git a/kernel/locking/rwsem.c b/kernel/locking/rwsem.c
> >> index 6cb29442d4fc..a310eb9896de 100644
> >> --- a/kernel/locking/rwsem.c
> >> +++ b/kernel/locking/rwsem.c
> >> @@ -205,14 +205,12 @@ bool is_rwsem_reader_owned(struct rw_semaphore *sem)
> >> return false;
> >> return rwsem_test_oflags(sem, RWSEM_READER_OWNED);
> >> }
> >> -#endif
> >>
> >> -#ifdef CONFIG_DEBUG_RWSEMS
> >> /*
> >> - * With CONFIG_DEBUG_RWSEMS configured, it will make sure that if there
> >> - * is a task pointer in owner of a reader-owned rwsem, it will be the
> >> - * real owner or one of the real owners. The only exception is when the
> >> - * unlock is done by up_read_non_owner().
> >> + * With CONFIG_DEBUG_RWSEMS or CONFIG_DETECT_HUNG_TASK_BLOCKER configured,
> >> + * it will make sure that the owner field of a reader-owned rwsem either
> >> + * points to a real reader-owner(s) or gets cleared. The only exception is
> >> + * when the unlock is done by up_read_non_owner().
> >> */
> >> static inline void rwsem_clear_reader_owned(struct rw_semaphore *sem)
> >> {
> >> --
> >> 2.49.0
> >>
> >
> >
>


--
Masami Hiramatsu (Google) <mhiramat@xxxxxxxxxx>