On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 06:31:38PM +0200, Oleg Nesterov wrote: > Again, sorry, I didn't read the patches yet, just noticed your discussion... > > On 07/31, Paul E. McKenney wrote: > > > > On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 03:30:12PM +0800, Lai Jiangshan wrote: > > > > > > + t->rcu_tasks_nvcsw = > > > > ACCESS_ONCE(t->nvcsw); > > > > + t->rcu_tasks_holdout = 1; > > > > + list_add(&t->rcu_tasks_holdout_list, > > > > + &rcu_tasks_holdouts); > > > > > > I think get_task_struct() is needed here to avoid the task disappears. > > > > Hmmm... Let's see... > > > > Looks like get_task_struct() does a blind atomic increment of ->usage. > > And put_task_struct() does an atomic_dec_and_test(). So one question > > is "what prevents us from doing get_task_struct() after the final > > put_task_struct() has pushed ->usage down to zero?" > > > > Hopefully there is a grace period in there somewhere, otherwise it will > > be necessary to take the task-list lock, which I would like to avoid. > > > > Looks like the call_rcu() of delayed_put_task_struct() in release_task() > > might be doing this. > > Yes, exactly, so get_task_struct() is always fine as long as task_struct > itself is protected by RCU. > > But can't we avoid get_task_struct()? This can pin a lot of task_struct's. > Can't we just add list_del_rcu(holdout_list) into __unhash_process() ?
If I add the list_del_rcu() there, then I am back to a concurrent list, which I would like to avoid. Don't get me wrong, it was fun playing with the list-locked stuff, but best to avoid it if we can. Also, the current implementation implicitly locks down the task_structs via the exit path. The nice thing about using get_task_struct to lock them down is that -only- the task_struct itself is locked down -- the task can be reaped and so on. In contrast, the current exit_rcu_tasks() approach delays the semantic exit instead of just hanging onto the underlying task_struct a bit longer. > We only need to ensure that list_add() above can't race with that list_del(), > perhaps we can tolerate lock_task_sighand() ? I am worried about a task that does a voluntary context switch, then exits. This could results in rcu_tasks_kthread() and __unhash_process() both wanting to dequeue at the same time, right? Thanx, Paul -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/