This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled libata, freezer: avoid block device removal while system is frozen to the 3.12-stable tree which can be found at: http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git;a=summary The filename of the patch is: libata-freezer-avoid-block-device-removal-while-system-is-frozen.patch and it can be found in the queue-3.12 subdirectory. If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> know about it. >From 85fbd722ad0f5d64d1ad15888cd1eb2188bfb557 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Tejun Heo <tj@xxxxxxxxxx> Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2013 07:07:32 -0500 Subject: libata, freezer: avoid block device removal while system is frozen From: Tejun Heo <tj@xxxxxxxxxx> commit 85fbd722ad0f5d64d1ad15888cd1eb2188bfb557 upstream. Freezable kthreads and workqueues are fundamentally problematic in that they effectively introduce a big kernel lock widely used in the kernel and have already been the culprit of several deadlock scenarios. This is the latest occurrence. During resume, libata rescans all the ports and revalidates all pre-existing devices. If it determines that a device has gone missing, the device is removed from the system which involves invalidating block device and flushing bdi while holding driver core layer locks. Unfortunately, this can race with the rest of device resume. Because freezable kthreads and workqueues are thawed after device resume is complete and block device removal depends on freezable workqueues and kthreads (e.g. bdi_wq, jbd2) to make progress, this can lead to deadlock - block device removal can't proceed because kthreads are frozen and kthreads can't be thawed because device resume is blocked behind block device removal. 839a8e8660b6 ("writeback: replace custom worker pool implementation with unbound workqueue") made this particular deadlock scenario more visible but the underlying problem has always been there - the original forker task and jbd2 are freezable too. In fact, this is highly likely just one of many possible deadlock scenarios given that freezer behaves as a big kernel lock and we don't have any debug mechanism around it. I believe the right thing to do is getting rid of freezable kthreads and workqueues. This is something fundamentally broken. For now, implement a funny workaround in libata - just avoid doing block device hot[un]plug while the system is frozen. Kernel engineering at its finest. :( v2: Add EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(pm_freezing) for cases where libata is built as a module. v3: Comment updated and polling interval changed to 10ms as suggested by Rafael. v4: Add #ifdef CONFIG_FREEZER around the hack as pm_freezing is not defined when FREEZER is not configured thus breaking build. Reported by kbuild test robot. Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <tj@xxxxxxxxxx> Reported-by: Tomaž Šolc <tomaz.solc@xxxxxxxxxx> Reviewed-by: "Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Link: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62801 Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20131213174932.GA27070@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Len Brown <len.brown@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: kbuild test robot <fengguang.wu@xxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- drivers/ata/libata-scsi.c | 21 +++++++++++++++++++++ kernel/freezer.c | 6 ++++++ 2 files changed, 27 insertions(+) --- a/drivers/ata/libata-scsi.c +++ b/drivers/ata/libata-scsi.c @@ -3872,6 +3872,27 @@ void ata_scsi_hotplug(struct work_struct return; } + /* + * XXX - UGLY HACK + * + * The block layer suspend/resume path is fundamentally broken due + * to freezable kthreads and workqueue and may deadlock if a block + * device gets removed while resume is in progress. I don't know + * what the solution is short of removing freezable kthreads and + * workqueues altogether. + * + * The following is an ugly hack to avoid kicking off device + * removal while freezer is active. This is a joke but does avoid + * this particular deadlock scenario. + * + * https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62801 + * http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=138695698516487 + */ +#ifdef CONFIG_FREEZER + while (pm_freezing) + msleep(10); +#endif + DPRINTK("ENTER\n"); mutex_lock(&ap->scsi_scan_mutex); --- a/kernel/freezer.c +++ b/kernel/freezer.c @@ -19,6 +19,12 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(system_freezing_cnt); bool pm_freezing; bool pm_nosig_freezing; +/* + * Temporary export for the deadlock workaround in ata_scsi_hotplug(). + * Remove once the hack becomes unnecessary. + */ +EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(pm_freezing); + /* protects freezing and frozen transitions */ static DEFINE_SPINLOCK(freezer_lock); Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from tj@xxxxxxxxxx are queue-3.12/ahci-imx-explicitly-clear-imx6q_gpr13_sata_mpll_clk_en.patch queue-3.12/libata-implement-ata_horkage_no_ncq_trim-and-apply-it-to-micro-m500-ssds.patch queue-3.12/libata-disable-a-disk-via-libata.force-params.patch queue-3.12/cgroup-fix-cgroup_create-error-handling-path.patch queue-3.12/libata-add-ata_horkage_broken_fpdma_aa-quirk-for-seagate-momentus-spinpoint-m8.patch queue-3.12/libata-freezer-avoid-block-device-removal-while-system-is-frozen.patch -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe stable" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html