Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sun, 7 Jan 2007 11:59:57 -0800 | From | Andrew Morton <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] fix-flush_workqueue-vs-cpu_dead-race-update |
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On Sun, 7 Jan 2007 16:30:13 +0530 Srivatsa Vaddagiri <vatsa@in.ibm.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 06, 2007 at 11:11:17AM -0800, Andrew Morton wrote: > > Has anyone thought seriously about using the process freezer in the > > cpu-down/cpu-up paths? That way we don't need to lock anything anywhere? > > How would this provide a stable access to cpu_online_map in functions > that need to block while accessing it (as flush_workqueue requires)?
If a thread simply blocks, that will not permit a cpu plug/unplug to proceed.
The thread had to explicitly call try_to_freeze(). CPU plug/unplug will not occur (and cpu_online_map will not change) until every process in the machine has called try_to_freeze()).
So the problem which you're referring to will only occur if a workqueue callback function calls try_to_freeze(), which would be mad.
Plus flush_workqueue() is on the way out. We're slowly edging towards a working cancel_work() which will only block if the work which you're trying to cancel is presently running. With that, pretty much all the flush_workqueue() calls go away, and all these accidental rarely-occurring deadlocks go away too.
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