Re: [RFC v3 2/3] kernel/time/clockevents: make setting of ->mult and ->mult_mono atomic

From: John Stultz
Date: Thu Jul 21 2016 - 14:16:22 EST


On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 6:00 AM, Nicolai Stange <nicstange@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> In order to avoid races between setting a struct clock_event_device's
> ->mult_mono in clockevents_update_freq() and yet to be implemented updates
> triggered from the timekeeping core, the setting of ->mult and ->mult_mono
> should be made atomic.
>
> Protect the update in clockevents_update_freq() by locking the
> clockevents_lock spinlock. Frequency updates are expected to be done
> seldomly and thus, taking this subsystem lock should not have any impact
> on performance.
>
> Use a raw_spin_lock_irq_save()/raw_spin_unlock_irq_restore() pair for
> locking/unlocking the clockevents_lock spinlock.
> Purge the now redundant local_irq_save()/local_irq_restore() pair from
> clockevents_update_freq(). Since the call to tick_broadcast_update_freq()
> isn't done with interrupts disabled anymore, its
> raw_spin_lock()/raw_spin_unlock() pair must be converted to
> raw_spin_lock_irq_save()/raw_spin_unlock_irq_restore().
>
> Signed-off-by: Nicolai Stange <nicstange@xxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> kernel/time/clockevents.c | 7 ++++---
> kernel/time/tick-broadcast.c | 5 +++--
> 2 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/kernel/time/clockevents.c b/kernel/time/clockevents.c
> index ba7fea4..ec01375 100644
> --- a/kernel/time/clockevents.c
> +++ b/kernel/time/clockevents.c
> @@ -589,11 +589,12 @@ int clockevents_update_freq(struct clock_event_device *dev, u32 freq)
> unsigned long flags;
> int ret;
>
> - local_irq_save(flags);
> ret = tick_broadcast_update_freq(dev, freq);
> - if (ret == -ENODEV)
> + if (ret == -ENODEV) {
> + raw_spin_lock_irqsave(&clockevents_lock, flags);
> ret = __clockevents_update_freq(dev, freq);
> - local_irq_restore(flags);
> + raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore(&clockevents_lock, flags);
> + }
> return ret;
> }
>
> diff --git a/kernel/time/tick-broadcast.c b/kernel/time/tick-broadcast.c
> index f6aae79..9c94c41 100644
> --- a/kernel/time/tick-broadcast.c
> +++ b/kernel/time/tick-broadcast.c
> @@ -125,11 +125,12 @@ int tick_is_broadcast_device(struct clock_event_device *dev)
> int tick_broadcast_update_freq(struct clock_event_device *dev, u32 freq)
> {
> int ret = -ENODEV;
> + unsigned long flags;
>
> if (tick_is_broadcast_device(dev)) {
> - raw_spin_lock(&tick_broadcast_lock);
> + raw_spin_lock_irqsave(&tick_broadcast_lock, flags);
> ret = __clockevents_update_freq(dev, freq);
> - raw_spin_unlock(&tick_broadcast_lock);
> + raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore(&tick_broadcast_lock, flags);
> }


So not necessarily part of your change, but this makes using
tick_broadcast_update_freq() seem strange.

We call it and if dev is a broadcast_device we call
__clockevents_update_freq(), and if not, it fails and we then just
call __clockevents_update_freq() again?

Why bother calling tick_broadcast_update_freq here, and instead just
call __clockevents_update_freq() directly the first time?

thanks
-john