On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 10:54:19AM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote: > On Mon 11-02-13 17:39:43, Johannes Weiner wrote: > > On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 10:27:56PM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote: > > > On Mon 11-02-13 14:58:24, Johannes Weiner wrote: > > > > That way, if the dead count gives the go-ahead, you KNOW that the > > > > position cache is valid, because it has been updated first. > > > > > > OK, you are right. We can live without css_tryget because dead_count is > > > either OK which means that css would be alive at least this rcu period > > > (and RCU walk would be safe as well) or it is incremented which means > > > that we have started css_offline already and then css is dead already. > > > So css_tryget can be dropped. > > > > Not quite :) > > > > The dead_count check is for completed destructions, > > Not quite :P. dead_count is incremented in css_offline callback which is > called before the cgroup core releases its last reference and unlinks > the group from the siblinks. css_tryget would already fail at this stage > because CSS_DEACT_BIAS is in place at that time but this doesn't break > RCU walk. So I think we are safe even without css_get. But you drop the RCU lock before you return. dead_count IS incremented for every destruction, but it's not reliable for concurrent ones, is what I meant. Again, if there is a dead_count mismatch, your pointer might be dangling, easy case. However, even if there is no mismatch, you could still race with a destruction that has marked the object dead, and then frees it once you drop the RCU lock, so you need try_get() to check if the object is dead, or you could return a pointer to freed or soon to be freed memory. /* * If the dead_count mismatches, a destruction has happened or is * happening concurrently. If the dead_count matches, a destruction * might still happen concurrently, but since we checked under RCU, * that destruction won't free the object until we release the RCU * reader lock. Thus, the dead_count check verifies the pointer is * still valid, css_tryget() verifies the cgroup pointed to is alive. */ -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@xxxxxxxxx";> email@xxxxxxxxx </a>