rcu: Document deadlock-avoidance information for rcu_read_unlock()

Reported-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Reviewed-by: Lai Jiangshan <laijs@cn.fujitsu.com>

1 files changed, 28 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/include/linux/rcupdate.h b/include/linux/rcupdate.h
index 6a94cc8..c56ad15 100644
--- a/include/linux/rcupdate.h
+++ b/include/linux/rcupdate.h
@@ -858,6 +858,34 @@ static inline void rcu_read_lock(void)
 /**
  * rcu_read_unlock() - marks the end of an RCU read-side critical section.
  *
+ * In most situations, rcu_read_unlock() is immune from deadlock.
+ * However, in kernels built with CONFIG_RCU_BOOST, rcu_read_unlock()
+ * is responsible for deboosting, which it does via rt_mutex_unlock().
+ * Unfortunately, this function acquires the scheduler's runqueue and
+ * priority-inheritance spinlocks.  This means that deadlock could result
+ * if the caller of rcu_read_unlock() already holds one of these locks or
+ * any lock that is ever acquired while holding them.
+ *
+ * That said, RCU readers are never priority boosted unless they were
+ * preempted.  Therefore, one way to avoid deadlock is to make sure
+ * that preemption never happens within any RCU read-side critical
+ * section whose outermost rcu_read_unlock() is called with one of
+ * rt_mutex_unlock()'s locks held.  Such preemption can be avoided in
+ * a number of ways, for example, by invoking preempt_disable() before
+ * critical section's outermost rcu_read_lock().
+ *
+ * Given that the set of locks acquired by rt_mutex_unlock() might change
+ * at any time, a somewhat more future-proofed approach is to make sure
+ * that that preemption never happens within any RCU read-side critical
+ * section whose outermost rcu_read_unlock() is called with irqs disabled.
+ * This approach relies on the fact that rt_mutex_unlock() currently only
+ * acquires irq-disabled locks.
+ *
+ * The second of these two approaches is best in most situations,
+ * however, the first approach can also be useful, at least to those
+ * developers willing to keep abreast of the set of locks acquired by
+ * rt_mutex_unlock().
+ *
  * See rcu_read_lock() for more information.
  */
 static inline void rcu_read_unlock(void)