[Xen-devel] [PATCH RFCv2 0/6] mm: online/offline_pages called w.o. mem_hotplug_lock

[David Hildenbrand <david@xxxxxxxxxx>]

This is the same approach as in the first RFC, but this time without
exporting device_hotplug_lock (requested by Greg) and with some more
details and documentation regarding locking. Tested only on x86 so far.

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Reading through the code and studying how mem_hotplug_lock is to be used,
I noticed that there are two places where we can end up calling
device_online()/device_offline() - online_pages()/offline_pages() without
the mem_hotplug_lock. And there are other places where we call
device_online()/device_offline() without the device_hotplug_lock.

While e.g.
        echo "online" > /sys/devices/system/memory/memory9/state
is fine, e.g.
        echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/memory/memory9/online
Will not take the mem_hotplug_lock. However the device_lock() and
device_hotplug_lock.

E.g. via memory_probe_store(), we can end up calling
add_memory()->online_pages() without the device_hotplug_lock. So we can
have concurrent callers in online_pages(). We e.g. touch in online_pages()
basically unprotected zone->present_pages then.

Looks like there is a longer history to that (see Patch #2 for details),
and fixing it to work the way it was intended is not really possible. We
would e.g. have to take the mem_hotplug_lock in device/base/core.c, which
sounds wrong.

Summary: We had a lock inversion on mem_hotplug_lock and device_lock().
More details can be found in patch 3 and patch 6.

I propose the general rules (documentation added in patch 6):

1. add_memory/add_memory_resource() must only be called with
   device_hotplug_lock.
2. remove_memory() must only be called with device_hotplug_lock. This is
   already documented and holds for all callers.
3. device_online()/device_offline() must only be called with
   device_hotplug_lock. This is already documented and true for now in core
   code. Other callers (related to memory hotplug) have to be fixed up.
4. mem_hotplug_lock is taken inside of add_memory/remove_memory/
   online_pages/offline_pages.

To me, this looks way cleaner than what we have right now (and easier to
verify). And looking at the documentation of remove_memory, using
lock_device_hotplug also for add_memory() feels natural.


RFC -> RFCv2:
- Don't export device_hotplug_lock, provide proper remove_memory/add_memory
  wrappers.
- Split up the patches a bit.
- Try to improve powernv memtrace locking
- Add some documentation for locking that matches my knowledge

David Hildenbrand (6):
  mm/memory_hotplug: make remove_memory() take the device_hotplug_lock
  mm/memory_hotplug: make add_memory() take the device_hotplug_lock
  mm/memory_hotplug: fix online/offline_pages called w.o.
    mem_hotplug_lock
  powerpc/powernv: hold device_hotplug_lock when calling device_online()
  powerpc/powernv: hold device_hotplug_lock in memtrace_offline_pages()
  memory-hotplug.txt: Add some details about locking internals

 Documentation/memory-hotplug.txt              | 39 +++++++++++-
 arch/powerpc/platforms/powernv/memtrace.c     | 14 +++--
 .../platforms/pseries/hotplug-memory.c        |  8 +--
 drivers/acpi/acpi_memhotplug.c                |  4 +-
 drivers/base/memory.c                         | 22 +++----
 drivers/xen/balloon.c                         |  3 +
 include/linux/memory_hotplug.h                |  4 +-
 mm/memory_hotplug.c                           | 59 +++++++++++++++----
 8 files changed, 115 insertions(+), 38 deletions(-)

-- 
2.17.1


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