The patch titled kthread: call wake_up_process() without the lock being held has been added to the -mm tree. Its filename is kthread-call-wake_up_process-without-the-lock-being-held.patch Before you just go and hit "reply", please: a) Consider who else should be cc'ed b) Prefer to cc a suitable mailing list as well c) Ideally: find the original patch on the mailing list and do a reply-to-all to that, adding suitable additional cc's *** Remember to use Documentation/SubmitChecklist when testing your code *** See http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/stuff/added-to-mm.txt to find out what to do about this The current -mm tree may be found at http://userweb.kernel.org/~akpm/mmotm/ ------------------------------------------------------ Subject: kthread: call wake_up_process() without the lock being held From: Dmitry Adamushko <dmitry.adamushko@xxxxxxxxx> - from the POV of synchronization, there should be no need to call wake_up_process() with the 'kthread_create_lock' being held; - moreover, in order to support a lockless check for list_empty(&kthread_create_list) in kthreadd() : set_current_state(TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE); if (list_empty(&kthread_create_list)) schedule(); we must ensure that a modification of the list (i.e. list_add_tail()) has been completed by the moment a state of the task is checked in try_to_wake_up(). i.e. they must not be re-ordered. wake_up_process() (i.e. try_to_wake_up() effectively) doesn't provide a full mb. By moving wake_up_process() out of the locked section, we get an UNLOCK/LOCK pair (LOCK is in try_to_wake_up()) which is guaranteed to act as a full mb. Signed-off-by: Dmitry Adamushko <dmitry.adamushko@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxx> Cc: Rusty Russell <rusty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: Andy Whitcroft <apw@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- kernel/kthread.c | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff -puN kernel/kthread.c~kthread-call-wake_up_process-without-the-lock-being-held kernel/kthread.c --- a/kernel/kthread.c~kthread-call-wake_up_process-without-the-lock-being-held +++ a/kernel/kthread.c @@ -158,9 +158,9 @@ struct task_struct *kthread_create(int ( spin_lock(&kthread_create_lock); list_add_tail(&create.list, &kthread_create_list); - wake_up_process(kthreadd_task); spin_unlock(&kthread_create_lock); + wake_up_process(kthreadd_task); wait_for_completion(&create.done); if (!IS_ERR(create.result)) { _ Patches currently in -mm which might be from dmitry.adamushko@xxxxxxxxx are kthread-synchronization-issues.patch kthread-add-a-missing-memory-barrier-to-kthread_stop.patch kthread-call-wake_up_process-without-the-lock-being-held.patch - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe mm-commits" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html