On 09/06/2021 22:29, Jason Ekstrand wrote:
Ever since 0eafec6d3244 ("drm/i915: Enable lockless lookup of request tracking via RCU"), the i915 driver has used SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU (it was called SLAB_DESTROY_BY_RCU at the time) in order to allow RCU on i915_request. As nifty as SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU may be, it comes with some serious disclaimers. In particular, objects can get recycled while RCU readers are still in-flight. This can be ok if everyone who touches these objects knows about the disclaimers and is careful. However, because we've chosen to use SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU for i915_request and because i915_request contains a dma_fence, we've leaked SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU and its whole pile of disclaimers to every driver in the kernel which may consume a dma_fence.
I don't think the part about leaking is true...
We've tried to keep it somewhat contained by doing most of the hard work to prevent access of recycled objects via dma_fence_get_rcu_safe(). However, a quick grep of kernel sources says that, of the 30 instances of dma_fence_get_rcu*, only 11 of them use dma_fence_get_rcu_safe(). It's likely there bear traps in DRM and related subsystems just waiting for someone to accidentally step in them.
...because dma_fence_get_rcu_safe apears to be about whether the *pointer* to the fence itself is rcu protected, not about the fence object itself.
If one has a stable pointer to a fence dma_fence_get_rcu is I think enough to deal with SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU used by i915_request (as dma fence is a base object there). Unless you found a bug in rq field recycling. But access to the dma fence is all tightly controlled so I don't get what leaks.
This patch series stops us using SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU for i915_request and, instead, does an RCU-safe slab free via rcu_call(). This should let us keep most of the perf benefits of slab allocation while avoiding the bear traps inherent in SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU. It then removes support for SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU from dma_fence entirely.
According to the rationale behind SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU traditional RCU freeing can be a lot more costly so I think we need a clear justification on why this change is being considered.
Regards, Tvrtko
Note: The last patch is labled DONOTMERGE. This was at Daniel Vetter's request as we may want to let this bake for a couple releases before we rip out dma_fence_get_rcu_safe entirely. Signed-off-by: Jason Ekstrand <jason@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Jon Bloomfield <jon.bloomfield@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter@xxxxxxxx> Cc: Christian König <christian.koenig@xxxxxxx> Cc: Dave Airlie <airlied@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Matthew Auld <matthew.auld@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: Maarten Lankhorst <maarten.lankhorst@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Jason Ekstrand (5): drm/i915: Move intel_engine_free_request_pool to i915_request.c drm/i915: Use a simpler scheme for caching i915_request drm/i915: Stop using SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU for i915_request dma-buf: Stop using SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU in selftests DONOTMERGE: dma-buf: Get rid of dma_fence_get_rcu_safe drivers/dma-buf/dma-fence-chain.c | 8 +- drivers/dma-buf/dma-resv.c | 4 +- drivers/dma-buf/st-dma-fence-chain.c | 24 +--- drivers/dma-buf/st-dma-fence.c | 27 +--- drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/amdgpu_fence.c | 4 +- drivers/gpu/drm/i915/gt/intel_engine_cs.c | 8 -- drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_active.h | 4 +- drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_request.c | 147 ++++++++++++---------- drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_request.h | 2 - drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_vma.c | 4 +- include/drm/drm_syncobj.h | 4 +- include/linux/dma-fence.h | 50 -------- include/linux/dma-resv.h | 4 +- 13 files changed, 110 insertions(+), 180 deletions(-)