On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 12:39 PM <sdf@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On 04/13, Andrii Nakryiko wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 11:33 AM Stanislav Fomichev <sdf@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > Commit 7d08c2c91171 ("bpf: Refactor BPF_PROG_RUN_ARRAY family of macros
> > > into functions") switched a bunch of BPF_PROG_RUN macros to inline
> > > routines. This changed the semantic a bit. Due to arguments expansion
> > > of macros, it used to be:
> > >
> > > rcu_read_lock();
> > > array = rcu_dereference(cgrp->bpf.effective[atype]);
> > > ...
> > >
> > > Now, with with inline routines, we have:
> > > array_rcu = rcu_dereference(cgrp->bpf.effective[atype]);
> > > /* array_rcu can be kfree'd here */
> > > rcu_read_lock();
> > > array = rcu_dereference(array_rcu);
> > >
>
> > So subtle difference, wow...
>
> > But this open-coding of rcu_read_lock() seems very unfortunate as
> > well. Would making BPF_PROG_RUN_ARRAY back to a macro which only does
> > rcu lock/unlock and grabs effective array and then calls static inline
> > function be a viable solution?
>
> > #define BPF_PROG_RUN_ARRAY_CG_FLAGS(array_rcu, ctx, run_prog, ret_flags) \
> > ({
> > int ret;
>
> > rcu_read_lock();
> > ret =
> > __BPF_PROG_RUN_ARRAY_CG_FLAGS(rcu_dereference(array_rcu), ....);
> > rcu_read_unlock();
> > ret;
> > })
>
>
> > where __BPF_PROG_RUN_ARRAY_CG_FLAGS is what
> > BPF_PROG_RUN_ARRAY_CG_FLAGS is today but with __rcu annotation dropped
> > (and no internal rcu stuff)?
>
> Yeah, that should work. But why do you think it's better to hide them?
> I find those automatic rcu locks deep in the call stack a bit obscure
> (when reasoning about sleepable vs non-sleepable contexts/bpf).
>
> I, as the caller, know that the effective array is rcu-managed (it
> has __rcu annotation) and it seems natural for me to grab rcu lock
> while work with it; I might grab it for some other things like cgroup
> anyway.
If you think that having this more explicitly is better, I'm fine with
that as well. I thought a simpler invocation pattern would be good,
given we call bpf_prog_run_array variants in quite a lot of places. So
count me indifferent. I'm curious what others think.
