Re: Possible lock-less list race in scheduler_ipi()

From: Linus Torvalds
Date: Thu Mar 05 2015 - 20:02:12 EST


On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 3:48 PM, Mathieu Desnoyers
<mathieu.desnoyers@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> llist_next() is pretty simple:
>
> static inline struct llist_node *llist_next(struct llist_node *node)
> {
> return node->next;
> }
>
> It is so simple that I wonder if the compiler would be
> within its rights to reorder the load of node->next
> after some operations within ttwu_do_activate(), thus
> causing corruption of this linked-list due to a
> concurrent try_to_wake_up() performed by another core.
>
> Am I too paranoid about the possible compiler mishaps
> there, or are my concerns justified ?

I *think* you are too paranoid, because that would be a major compiler
bug anyway - gcc cannot reorder the load against anything that might
be changing the value. Which obviously includes calling non-inlined
functions.

At least the code generation I see doesn't seem to say that gcc gets this wrong:

...
leaq -32(%rbx), %rsi #, p
movq (%rbx), %rbx # MEM[(struct llist_node
*)__mptr_19].next, __mptr
movq %r12, %rdi # tcp_ptr__,
call ttwu_do_activate.constprop.85 #
...

that "movq (%rbx), %rbx" is the "llist = llist_next(llist);" thing.

Linus
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