1. 17 Jun, 2010 2 commits
    • Jeff Moyer's avatar
      cfq: Don't allow queue merges for queues that have no process references · c10b61f0
      Jeff Moyer authored
      Hi,
      
      A user reported a kernel bug when running a particular program that did
      the following:
      
      created 32 threads
      - each thread took a mutex, grabbed a global offset, added a buffer size
        to that offset, released the lock
      - read from the given offset in the file
      - created a new thread to do the same
      - exited
      
      The result is that cfq's close cooperator logic would trigger, as the
      threads were issuing I/O within the mean seek distance of one another.
      This workload managed to routinely trigger a use after free bug when
      walking the list of merge candidates for a particular cfqq
      (cfqq->new_cfqq).  The logic used for merging queues looks like this:
      
      static void cfq_setup_merge(struct cfq_queue *cfqq, struct cfq_queue *new_cfqq)
      {
      	int process_refs, new_process_refs;
      	struct cfq_queue *__cfqq;
      
      	/* Avoid a circular list and skip interim queue merges */
      	while ((__cfqq = new_cfqq->new_cfqq)) {
      		if (__cfqq == cfqq)
      			return;
      		new_cfqq = __cfqq;
      	}
      
      	process_refs = cfqq_process_refs(cfqq);
      	/*
      	 * If the process for the cfqq has gone away, there is no
      	 * sense in merging the queues.
      	 */
      	if (process_refs == 0)
      		return;
      
      	/*
      	 * Merge in the direction of the lesser amount of work.
      	 */
      	new_process_refs = cfqq_process_refs(new_cfqq);
      	if (new_process_refs >= process_refs) {
      		cfqq->new_cfqq = new_cfqq;
      		atomic_add(process_refs, &new_cfqq->ref);
      	} else {
      		new_cfqq->new_cfqq = cfqq;
      		atomic_add(new_process_refs, &cfqq->ref);
      	}
      }
      
      When a merge candidate is found, we add the process references for the
      queue with less references to the queue with more.  The actual merging
      of queues happens when a new request is issued for a given cfqq.  In the
      case of the test program, it only does a single pread call to read in
      1MB, so the actual merge never happens.
      
      Normally, this is fine, as when the queue exits, we simply drop the
      references we took on the other cfqqs in the merge chain:
      
      	/*
      	 * If this queue was scheduled to merge with another queue, be
      	 * sure to drop the reference taken on that queue (and others in
      	 * the merge chain).  See cfq_setup_merge and cfq_merge_cfqqs.
      	 */
      	__cfqq = cfqq->new_cfqq;
      	while (__cfqq) {
      		if (__cfqq == cfqq) {
      			WARN(1, "cfqq->new_cfqq loop detected\n");
      			break;
      		}
      		next = __cfqq->new_cfqq;
      		cfq_put_queue(__cfqq);
      		__cfqq = next;
      	}
      
      However, there is a hole in this logic.  Consider the following (and
      keep in mind that each I/O keeps a reference to the cfqq):
      
      q1->new_cfqq = q2   // q2 now has 2 process references
      q3->new_cfqq = q2   // q2 now has 3 process references
      
      // the process associated with q2 exits
      // q2 now has 2 process references
      
      // queue 1 exits, drops its reference on q2
      // q2 now has 1 process reference
      
      // q3 exits, so has 0 process references, and hence drops its references
      // to q2, which leaves q2 also with 0 process references
      
      q4 comes along and wants to merge with q3
      
      q3->new_cfqq still points at q2!  We follow that link and end up at an
      already freed cfqq.
      
      So, the fix is to not follow a merge chain if the top-most queue does
      not have a process reference, otherwise any queue in the chain could be
      already freed.  I also changed the logic to disallow merging with a
      queue that does not have any process references.  Previously, we did
      this check for one of the merge candidates, but not the other.  That
      doesn't really make sense.
      
      Without the attached patch, my system would BUG within a couple of
      seconds of running the reproducer program.  With the patch applied, my
      system ran the program for over an hour without issues.
      
      This addresses the following bugzilla:
          https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16217
      
      Thanks a ton to Phil Carns for providing the bug report and an excellent
      reproducer.
      
      [ Note for stable: this applies to 2.6.32/33/34 ].
      Signed-off-by: default avatarJeff Moyer <jmoyer@redhat.com>
      Reported-by: default avatarPhil Carns <carns@mcs.anl.gov>
      Cc: stable@kernel.org
      Signed-off-by: default avatarJens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
      c10b61f0
    • Christoph Hellwig's avatar
      block: fix DISCARD_BARRIER requests · fbbf0556
      Christoph Hellwig authored
      Filesystems assume that DISCARD_BARRIER are full barriers, so that they
      don't have to track in-progress discard operation when submitting new I/O.
      But currently we only treat them as elevator barriers, which don't
      actually do the nessecary queue drains.
      
      Also remove the unlikely around both the DISCARD and BARRIER requests -
      the happen far too often for a static mispredict.
      Signed-off-by: default avatarChristoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
      Signed-off-by: default avatarJens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>
      fbbf0556
  2. 15 Jun, 2010 1 commit
  3. 14 Jun, 2010 4 commits
  4. 12 Jun, 2010 1 commit
  5. 11 Jun, 2010 32 commits