Re: Deadlock during multipath failover

From: Hannes Reinecke
Date: Thu Feb 12 2009 - 08:25:49 EST


Hi Christof,

Christof Schmitt wrote:
During failover tests on a current distribution kernel, we found this
problem. From reading the code, the upstream kernel has the same
problem:

During multipath failover tests with SCSI on System z, the kernel
deadlocks in this situation:

STACK:
0 blk_add_timer+206 [0x2981ea]
1 blk_rq_timed_out+132 [0x2982a8]
2 blk_abort_request+114 [0x29833e]
3 blk_abort_queue+92 [0x2983a8]
4 deactivate_path+74 [0x3e00009625a]
5 run_workqueue+236 [0x149e04]
6 worker_thread+294 [0x149fce]
7 kthread+110 [0x14f436]
8 kernel_thread_starter+6 [0x10941a]

blk_abort_queue takes the queue_lock with spinlock_irqsave and walks
the timer_list with list_for_each_entry_safe. Since a path to a SCSI
device just failed, the rport state is FC_PORTSTATE_BLOCKED. This
rport state triggers blk_add_timer that calls list_add_tail to move
the request to the end of timer_list. Thus, the
list_for_each_entry_safe never reaches the end of the timer_list, it
continously moves the requests to the end of the list.

Hmm. That would be fixes by using list_splice() here:

diff --git a/block/blk-timeout.c b/block/blk-timeout.c
index a095353..67bcc3f 100644
--- a/block/blk-timeout.c
+++ b/block/blk-timeout.c
@@ -209,12 +209,15 @@ void blk_abort_queue(struct request_queue *q)
{
unsigned long flags;
struct request *rq, *tmp;
+ LIST_HEAD(list);

spin_lock_irqsave(q->queue_lock, flags);

elv_abort_queue(q);

- list_for_each_entry_safe(rq, tmp, &q->timeout_list, timeout_list)
+ list_splice_init(&q->timeout_list, &list);
+
+ list_for_each_entry_safe(rq, tmp, &list, timeout_list)
blk_abort_request(rq);

spin_unlock_irqrestore(q->queue_lock, flags);

The rport state FC_PORTSTATE_BLOCKED would end, when the function
fc_timeout_deleted_rport would run to remove the rport. But this
function was schedules from queue_delayed_work. The timer already
expired, but the timer function does not run, because the timer
interrupt is disabled from the spinlock_irqsave call.

.. but this shouldn't happen anymore when using splice, as
the timer will be called _after_ the irqrestore above.

Cheers,

Hannes
--
Dr. Hannes Reinecke zSeries & Storage
hare@xxxxxxx +49 911 74053 688
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg
GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg)
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