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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/DIRMINA-1107?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=16838914#comment-16838914
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Emmanuel Lecharny commented on DIRMINA-1107:
--------------------------------------------

Regarding the multi-threading aspect:
* Incoming messages are handled by one single thread. A session is always 
associated with this thread when created, so we are always safe.
* outgoing messages are a bit different, because we may have an executor in the 
chain. In this case, a session might call a write in many different threads, 
and that must be handled properly. In any case, once the data have been 
encrypted, and pushed into the {{IoProcessor}} queue (always the same), then it 
will be written by a single thread, the {{IoProcessor}} thread.

So we have to consider protecting the {{SSL}} filter against code that has an 
executor. The {{flushScheduleEvents()}} method, which is called by the 
{{startTls}}, stopTls}}, {{messageReceived}}, {{filterWrite}}, {{filterClose}} 
and {{initiateHandshake}} methods, should first propagate the received messages 
- because it's synchronous - and then process all the messages to be written, 
in a protected section. 

Anyway, it's late, I need to rest and review the code again tomorrow or later 
on, to see if I'm right :-)

> SslHandler flushScheduledEvents race condition, redux
> -----------------------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: DIRMINA-1107
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/DIRMINA-1107
>             Project: MINA
>          Issue Type: Bug
>    Affects Versions: 2.1.2
>            Reporter: Guus der Kinderen
>            Priority: Major
>             Fix For: 2.1.3
>
>
> DIRMINA-1019 addresses a race condition in SslHandler, but unintentionally 
> replaces it with another multithreading issue.
> The fix for DIRMINA-1019 introduces a counter that contains the number of 
> events to be processed. A simplified version of the code is included below.
> {code:java}
> private final AtomicInteger scheduledEvents = new AtomicInteger(0);
> void flushScheduledEvents() {
>     scheduledEvents.incrementAndGet();
>     if (sslLock.tryLock()) {            
>         try {
>             do {
>                 while ((event = filterWriteEventQueue.poll()) != null) {
>                     // ...
>                 }
>             
>                 while ((event = messageReceivedEventQueue.poll()) != null){
>                     // ...
>                 }
>             } while (scheduledEvents.decrementAndGet() > 0);
>         } finally {
>             sslLock.unlock();
>         }
>     }
> }{code}
> We have observed occasions where the value of {{scheduledEvents}} becomes a 
> negative value, while at the same time {{filterWriteEventQueue}} go 
> unprocessed.
> We suspect that this issue is triggered by a concurrency issue caused by the 
> first thread decrementing the counter after a second thread incremented it, 
> but before it attempted to acquire the lock.
> This allows the the first thread to empty the queues, decrementing the 
> counter to zero and release the lock, after which the second thread acquires 
> the lock successfully. Now, the second thread processes any elements in 
> {{filterWriteEventQueue}}, and then processes any elements in 
> {{messageReceivedEventQueue}}. If in between these two checks yet another 
> thread adds a new element to {{filterWriteEventQueue}}, this element can go 
> unprocessed (as the second thread does not loop, since the counter is zero or 
> negative, and the third thread can fail to acquire the lock).
> It's a seemingly unlikely scenario, but we are observing the behavior when 
> our systems are under high load.
> We've applied a code change after which this problem is no longer observed. 
> We've removed the counter, and check on the size of the queues instead:
> {code:java}
> void flushScheduledEvents() {
>     if (sslLock.tryLock()) {            
>         try {
>             do {
>                 while ((event = filterWriteEventQueue.poll()) != null) {
>                     // ...
>                 }
>             
>                 while ((event = messageReceivedEventQueue.poll()) != null){
>                     // ...
>                 }
>             } while (!filterWriteEventQueue.isEmpty() || 
> !messageReceivedEventQueue.isEmpty());
>         } finally {
>             sslLock.unlock();
>         }
>     }
> }{code}
> This code change, as illustrated above, does introduce a new potential 
> problem. Theoretically, an event could be added to the queues and 
> {{flushScheduledEvents}} be called returning {{false}} for 
> {{sslLock.tryLock()}}, exactly after another thread just finished the 
> {{while}} loop, but before releasing the lock. This again would cause events 
> to go unprocessed.
> We've not observed this problem in the wild yet, but we're uncomfortable 
> applying this change as-is.



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