rcu: Prevent RCU callbacks from executing before scheduler initialized

Under some rare but real combinations of configuration parameters, RCU
callbacks are posted during early boot that use kernel facilities that
are not yet initialized.  Therefore, when these callbacks are invoked,
hard hangs and crashes ensue.  This commit therefore prevents RCU
callbacks from being invoked until after the scheduler is fully up and
running, as in after multiple tasks have been spawned.

It might well turn out that a better approach is to identify the specific
RCU callbacks that are causing this problem, but that discussion will
wait until such time as someone really needs an RCU callback to be invoked
(as opposed to merely registered) during early boot.

Reported-by: julie Sullivan <kernelmail.jms@gmail.com>
Reported-by: RKK <kulkarni.ravi4@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Tested-by: Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>
Tested-by: julie Sullivan <kernelmail.jms@gmail.com>
Tested-by: RKK <kulkarni.ravi4@gmail.com>

1 files changed, 25 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/kernel/rcutree.c b/kernel/rcutree.c
index 7e59ffb..ba06207 100644
--- a/kernel/rcutree.c
+++ b/kernel/rcutree.c
@@ -84,9 +84,32 @@ DEFINE_PER_CPU(struct rcu_data, rcu_bh_data);
 
 static struct rcu_state *rcu_state;
 
+/*
+ * The rcu_scheduler_active variable transitions from zero to one just
+ * before the first task is spawned.  So when this variable is zero, RCU
+ * can assume that there is but one task, allowing RCU to (for example)
+ * optimized synchronize_sched() to a simple barrier().  When this variable
+ * is one, RCU must actually do all the hard work required to detect real
+ * grace periods.  This variable is also used to suppress boot-time false
+ * positives from lockdep-RCU error checking.
+ */
 int rcu_scheduler_active __read_mostly;
 EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(rcu_scheduler_active);
 
+/*
+ * The rcu_scheduler_fully_active variable transitions from zero to one
+ * during the early_initcall() processing, which is after the scheduler
+ * is capable of creating new tasks.  So RCU processing (for example,
+ * creating tasks for RCU priority boosting) must be delayed until after
+ * rcu_scheduler_fully_active transitions from zero to one.  We also
+ * currently delay invocation of any RCU callbacks until after this point.
+ *
+ * It might later prove better for people registering RCU callbacks during
+ * early boot to take responsibility for these callbacks, but one step at
+ * a time.
+ */
+static int rcu_scheduler_fully_active __read_mostly;
+
 #ifdef CONFIG_RCU_BOOST
 
 /*
@@ -98,7 +121,6 @@ DEFINE_PER_CPU(unsigned int, rcu_cpu_kthread_status);
 DEFINE_PER_CPU(int, rcu_cpu_kthread_cpu);
 DEFINE_PER_CPU(unsigned int, rcu_cpu_kthread_loops);
 DEFINE_PER_CPU(char, rcu_cpu_has_work);
-static char rcu_kthreads_spawnable;
 
 #endif /* #ifdef CONFIG_RCU_BOOST */
 
@@ -1467,6 +1489,8 @@ static void rcu_process_callbacks(struct softirq_action *unused)
  */
 static void invoke_rcu_callbacks(struct rcu_state *rsp, struct rcu_data *rdp)
 {
+	if (unlikely(!ACCESS_ONCE(rcu_scheduler_fully_active)))
+		return;
 	if (likely(!rsp->boost)) {
 		rcu_do_batch(rsp, rdp);
 		return;