Here is a fix for a ugly race condition that occurs in wake_futex() on IA64.
On IA64, locks are released using a "st.rel" instruction. This ensures that
preceding "stores" are visible before the lock is released but does NOT prevent
a "store" that follows the "st.rel" from becoming visible before the "st.rel".
The result is that the task that owns the futex_q continues prematurely.
The failure I saw is the task that owned the futex_q resumed prematurely and
was context-switch off of the cpu. The task's switch_stack occupied the same
space of the futex_q. The store to q->lock_ptr overwrote the ar.bspstore in the
switch_stack. When the task resumed, it ran with a corrupted ar.bspstore.
Things went downhill from there.
Without the fix, the application fails roughly every 10 minutes. With
the fix, it ran 16 hours without a failure.
----
Fix a memory ordering problem that occurs on IA64. The "store" to q->lock_ptr
in wake_futex() can become visible before wake_up_all() clears the lock in the
futex_q.
Signed-off-by: Jack Steiner <[email protected]>
Index: linux/kernel/futex.c
===================================================================
--- linux.orig/kernel/futex.c 2005-12-22 15:05:43.821889257 -0600
+++ linux/kernel/futex.c 2005-12-22 15:30:21.617973325 -0600
@@ -287,7 +287,13 @@ static void wake_futex(struct futex_q *q
/*
* The waiting task can free the futex_q as soon as this is written,
* without taking any locks. This must come last.
+ *
+ * A memory barrier is required here to prevent the following store
+ * to lock_ptr from getting ahead of the wakeup. Clearing the lock
+ * at the end of wake_up_all() does not prevent this store from
+ * moving.
*/
+ wmb();
q->lock_ptr = NULL;
}
-
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