On Wed, Apr 06, 2016 at 01:10:57PM +1000, NeilBrown wrote: > On Wed, Apr 06 2016, Shaohua Li wrote: > > > On Tue, Apr 05, 2016 at 03:36:57PM +0200, Lars Ellenberg wrote: > >> blk_check_plugged() will return a pointer > >> to an object linked on current->plug->cb_list. > >> > >> That list may "at any time" be implicitly cleared by > >> blk_flush_plug_list() > >> flush_plug_callbacks() > >> either as a result of blk_finish_plug(), > >> or implicitly by schedule() [and maybe other implicit mechanisms?] > >> > >> If there is no protection against an implicit unplug > >> between the call to blk_check_plug() and using its return value, > >> that implicit unplug may have already happened, > >> even before the plug is actually initialized or populated, > >> and we may be using a pointer to already free()d data. > > > > This isn't correct. flush plug is never called in preemption, which is designed > > only called when the task is going to sleep. See sched_submit_work. Am I > > missing anything? > > Ahh yes, thanks. > > Only two places call blk_schedule_flush_plug(). > One is io_schedule_timeout() which must be called explicitly. > There other is, as you say, sched_submit_work(). It starts: > > static inline void sched_submit_work(struct task_struct *tsk) > { > if (!tsk->state || tsk_is_pi_blocked(tsk)) > return; > > so if the task is runnable, then as > include/linux/sched.h:#define TASK_RUNNING 0 > > it will never call blk_schedule_flush_plug(). > > So I don't think you are missing anything, we were. > > Lars: have your concerns been relieved or do you still have reason to > think there is a problem? So just don't call anything that might_sleep() between blk_check_plug() and using its return value. All good. I thought I must have overlooked something. Thanks, Lars -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html