Re: [PATCH] slub: fix slab_pad_check()

From: Paul E. McKenney
Date: Fri Sep 04 2009 - 16:43:01 EST


On Fri, Sep 04, 2009 at 12:17:34AM +0200, Eric Dumazet wrote:
> Eric Dumazet a écrit :
> >
> >
> >
> > Problem is not _objects_ Christoph, but _slabs_, and your patch is not working.
> >
> > Its true that when User calls kmem_cache_destroy(), all _objects_ were previously freed.
> > This is mandatory, with or withou SLAB_DESTROY_BY_RCU thing
> >
> > Problem is that slub has some internal state, including some to-be-freed _slabs_,
> > that User have no control at all on it.
> >
> > User cannot "know" slabs are freed, inuse, or whatever state in cache or call_rcu queues.
> >
> > Face it, SLAB_DESTROY_BY_RCU is internal affair (to slub/slab/... allocators)
> >
> > We absolutely need a rcu_barrier() somewhere, believe it or not. You can argue that it should
> > be done *before*, but it gives no speedup, only potential bugs.
> >
> > Only case User should do its rcu_barrier() itself is if it knows some call_rcu() are pending
> > and are delaying _objects_ freeing (typical !SLAB_DESTROY_RCU usage in RCU algos).
> >
> > I dont even understand why you care so much about kmem_cache_destroy(SLAB_DESTROY_BY_RCU),
> > given that almost nobody use it. We took almost one month to find out what the bug was in first
> > place...
>
>
> So maybe the safest thing would be to include the rcu_barrier() to
> insure all objects where freed

I argue that the above is the user's responsibility. That said, I don't
see why the user would pass a SLAB_DESTROY_BY_RCU object to call_rcu().
So I would want to see an example of this before inflicting a pair
of rcu_barrier() calls on kmem_cache_destroy().

> And another one for SLAB_DESTROY_BY_RCU to make sure slabs where freed

This last is I believe kmem_cache's responsibility.

Thanx, Paul

> void kmem_cache_destroy(struct kmem_cache *s)
> {
> /*
> * Make sure no objects are waiting in call_rcu queues to be freed
> */
> rcu_barrier();
>
> down_write(&slub_lock);
> s->refcount--;
> if (!s->refcount) {
> list_del(&s->list);
> up_write(&slub_lock);
> if (kmem_cache_close(s)) {
> printk(KERN_ERR "SLUB %s: %s called for cache that "
> "still has objects.\n", s->name, __func__);
> dump_stack();
> }
> /*
> * Make sure no slabs are waiting in call_rcu queues to be freed
> */
> if (s->flags & SLAB_DESTROY_BY_RCU)
> rcu_barrier();
> sysfs_slab_remove(s);
> } else
> up_write(&slub_lock);
> }
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/