summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/Documentation/locking/lockdep-design.rst
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/locking/lockdep-design.rst')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/locking/lockdep-design.rst394
1 files changed, 394 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/locking/lockdep-design.rst b/Documentation/locking/lockdep-design.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..23fcbc4d3fc0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/locking/lockdep-design.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,394 @@
+Runtime locking correctness validator
+=====================================
+
+started by Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
+
+additions by Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
+
+Lock-class
+----------
+
+The basic object the validator operates upon is a 'class' of locks.
+
+A class of locks is a group of locks that are logically the same with
+respect to locking rules, even if the locks may have multiple (possibly
+tens of thousands of) instantiations. For example a lock in the inode
+struct is one class, while each inode has its own instantiation of that
+lock class.
+
+The validator tracks the 'usage state' of lock-classes, and it tracks
+the dependencies between different lock-classes. Lock usage indicates
+how a lock is used with regard to its IRQ contexts, while lock
+dependency can be understood as lock order, where L1 -> L2 suggests that
+a task is attempting to acquire L2 while holding L1. From lockdep's
+perspective, the two locks (L1 and L2) are not necessarily related; that
+dependency just means the order ever happened. The validator maintains a
+continuing effort to prove lock usages and dependencies are correct or
+the validator will shoot a splat if incorrect.
+
+A lock-class's behavior is constructed by its instances collectively:
+when the first instance of a lock-class is used after bootup the class
+gets registered, then all (subsequent) instances will be mapped to the
+class and hence their usages and dependecies will contribute to those of
+the class. A lock-class does not go away when a lock instance does, but
+it can be removed if the memory space of the lock class (static or
+dynamic) is reclaimed, this happens for example when a module is
+unloaded or a workqueue is destroyed.
+
+State
+-----
+
+The validator tracks lock-class usage history and divides the usage into
+(4 usages * n STATEs + 1) categories:
+
+where the 4 usages can be:
+- 'ever held in STATE context'
+- 'ever held as readlock in STATE context'
+- 'ever held with STATE enabled'
+- 'ever held as readlock with STATE enabled'
+
+where the n STATEs are coded in kernel/locking/lockdep_states.h and as of
+now they include:
+- hardirq
+- softirq
+
+where the last 1 category is:
+- 'ever used' [ == !unused ]
+
+When locking rules are violated, these usage bits are presented in the
+locking error messages, inside curlies, with a total of 2 * n STATEs bits.
+A contrived example::
+
+ modprobe/2287 is trying to acquire lock:
+ (&sio_locks[i].lock){-.-.}, at: [<c02867fd>] mutex_lock+0x21/0x24
+
+ but task is already holding lock:
+ (&sio_locks[i].lock){-.-.}, at: [<c02867fd>] mutex_lock+0x21/0x24
+
+
+For a given lock, the bit positions from left to right indicate the usage
+of the lock and readlock (if exists), for each of the n STATEs listed
+above respectively, and the character displayed at each bit position
+indicates:
+
+ === ===================================================
+ '.' acquired while irqs disabled and not in irq context
+ '-' acquired in irq context
+ '+' acquired with irqs enabled
+ '?' acquired in irq context with irqs enabled.
+ === ===================================================
+
+The bits are illustrated with an example::
+
+ (&sio_locks[i].lock){-.-.}, at: [<c02867fd>] mutex_lock+0x21/0x24
+ ||||
+ ||| \-> softirq disabled and not in softirq context
+ || \--> acquired in softirq context
+ | \---> hardirq disabled and not in hardirq context
+ \----> acquired in hardirq context
+
+
+For a given STATE, whether the lock is ever acquired in that STATE
+context and whether that STATE is enabled yields four possible cases as
+shown in the table below. The bit character is able to indicate which
+exact case is for the lock as of the reporting time.
+
+ +--------------+-------------+--------------+
+ | | irq enabled | irq disabled |
+ +--------------+-------------+--------------+
+ | ever in irq | ? | - |
+ +--------------+-------------+--------------+
+ | never in irq | + | . |
+ +--------------+-------------+--------------+
+
+The character '-' suggests irq is disabled because if otherwise the
+charactor '?' would have been shown instead. Similar deduction can be
+applied for '+' too.
+
+Unused locks (e.g., mutexes) cannot be part of the cause of an error.
+
+
+Single-lock state rules:
+------------------------
+
+A lock is irq-safe means it was ever used in an irq context, while a lock
+is irq-unsafe means it was ever acquired with irq enabled.
+
+A softirq-unsafe lock-class is automatically hardirq-unsafe as well. The
+following states must be exclusive: only one of them is allowed to be set
+for any lock-class based on its usage::
+
+ <hardirq-safe> or <hardirq-unsafe>
+ <softirq-safe> or <softirq-unsafe>
+
+This is because if a lock can be used in irq context (irq-safe) then it
+cannot be ever acquired with irq enabled (irq-unsafe). Otherwise, a
+deadlock may happen. For example, in the scenario that after this lock
+was acquired but before released, if the context is interrupted this
+lock will be attempted to acquire twice, which creates a deadlock,
+referred to as lock recursion deadlock.
+
+The validator detects and reports lock usage that violates these
+single-lock state rules.
+
+Multi-lock dependency rules:
+----------------------------
+
+The same lock-class must not be acquired twice, because this could lead
+to lock recursion deadlocks.
+
+Furthermore, two locks can not be taken in inverse order::
+
+ <L1> -> <L2>
+ <L2> -> <L1>
+
+because this could lead to a deadlock - referred to as lock inversion
+deadlock - as attempts to acquire the two locks form a circle which
+could lead to the two contexts waiting for each other permanently. The
+validator will find such dependency circle in arbitrary complexity,
+i.e., there can be any other locking sequence between the acquire-lock
+operations; the validator will still find whether these locks can be
+acquired in a circular fashion.
+
+Furthermore, the following usage based lock dependencies are not allowed
+between any two lock-classes::
+
+ <hardirq-safe> -> <hardirq-unsafe>
+ <softirq-safe> -> <softirq-unsafe>
+
+The first rule comes from the fact that a hardirq-safe lock could be
+taken by a hardirq context, interrupting a hardirq-unsafe lock - and
+thus could result in a lock inversion deadlock. Likewise, a softirq-safe
+lock could be taken by an softirq context, interrupting a softirq-unsafe
+lock.
+
+The above rules are enforced for any locking sequence that occurs in the
+kernel: when acquiring a new lock, the validator checks whether there is
+any rule violation between the new lock and any of the held locks.
+
+When a lock-class changes its state, the following aspects of the above
+dependency rules are enforced:
+
+- if a new hardirq-safe lock is discovered, we check whether it
+ took any hardirq-unsafe lock in the past.
+
+- if a new softirq-safe lock is discovered, we check whether it took
+ any softirq-unsafe lock in the past.
+
+- if a new hardirq-unsafe lock is discovered, we check whether any
+ hardirq-safe lock took it in the past.
+
+- if a new softirq-unsafe lock is discovered, we check whether any
+ softirq-safe lock took it in the past.
+
+(Again, we do these checks too on the basis that an interrupt context
+could interrupt _any_ of the irq-unsafe or hardirq-unsafe locks, which
+could lead to a lock inversion deadlock - even if that lock scenario did
+not trigger in practice yet.)
+
+Exception: Nested data dependencies leading to nested locking
+-------------------------------------------------------------
+
+There are a few cases where the Linux kernel acquires more than one
+instance of the same lock-class. Such cases typically happen when there
+is some sort of hierarchy within objects of the same type. In these
+cases there is an inherent "natural" ordering between the two objects
+(defined by the properties of the hierarchy), and the kernel grabs the
+locks in this fixed order on each of the objects.
+
+An example of such an object hierarchy that results in "nested locking"
+is that of a "whole disk" block-dev object and a "partition" block-dev
+object; the partition is "part of" the whole device and as long as one
+always takes the whole disk lock as a higher lock than the partition
+lock, the lock ordering is fully correct. The validator does not
+automatically detect this natural ordering, as the locking rule behind
+the ordering is not static.
+
+In order to teach the validator about this correct usage model, new
+versions of the various locking primitives were added that allow you to
+specify a "nesting level". An example call, for the block device mutex,
+looks like this::
+
+ enum bdev_bd_mutex_lock_class
+ {
+ BD_MUTEX_NORMAL,
+ BD_MUTEX_WHOLE,
+ BD_MUTEX_PARTITION
+ };
+
+mutex_lock_nested(&bdev->bd_contains->bd_mutex, BD_MUTEX_PARTITION);
+
+In this case the locking is done on a bdev object that is known to be a
+partition.
+
+The validator treats a lock that is taken in such a nested fashion as a
+separate (sub)class for the purposes of validation.
+
+Note: When changing code to use the _nested() primitives, be careful and
+check really thoroughly that the hierarchy is correctly mapped; otherwise
+you can get false positives or false negatives.
+
+Annotations
+-----------
+
+Two constructs can be used to annotate and check where and if certain locks
+must be held: lockdep_assert_held*(&lock) and lockdep_*pin_lock(&lock).
+
+As the name suggests, lockdep_assert_held* family of macros assert that a
+particular lock is held at a certain time (and generate a WARN() otherwise).
+This annotation is largely used all over the kernel, e.g. kernel/sched/
+core.c::
+
+ void update_rq_clock(struct rq *rq)
+ {
+ s64 delta;
+
+ lockdep_assert_held(&rq->lock);
+ [...]
+ }
+
+where holding rq->lock is required to safely update a rq's clock.
+
+The other family of macros is lockdep_*pin_lock(), which is admittedly only
+used for rq->lock ATM. Despite their limited adoption these annotations
+generate a WARN() if the lock of interest is "accidentally" unlocked. This turns
+out to be especially helpful to debug code with callbacks, where an upper
+layer assumes a lock remains taken, but a lower layer thinks it can maybe drop
+and reacquire the lock ("unwittingly" introducing races). lockdep_pin_lock()
+returns a 'struct pin_cookie' that is then used by lockdep_unpin_lock() to check
+that nobody tampered with the lock, e.g. kernel/sched/sched.h::
+
+ static inline void rq_pin_lock(struct rq *rq, struct rq_flags *rf)
+ {
+ rf->cookie = lockdep_pin_lock(&rq->lock);
+ [...]
+ }
+
+ static inline void rq_unpin_lock(struct rq *rq, struct rq_flags *rf)
+ {
+ [...]
+ lockdep_unpin_lock(&rq->lock, rf->cookie);
+ }
+
+While comments about locking requirements might provide useful information,
+the runtime checks performed by annotations are invaluable when debugging
+locking problems and they carry the same level of details when inspecting
+code. Always prefer annotations when in doubt!
+
+Proof of 100% correctness:
+--------------------------
+
+The validator achieves perfect, mathematical 'closure' (proof of locking
+correctness) in the sense that for every simple, standalone single-task
+locking sequence that occurred at least once during the lifetime of the
+kernel, the validator proves it with a 100% certainty that no
+combination and timing of these locking sequences can cause any class of
+lock related deadlock. [1]_
+
+I.e. complex multi-CPU and multi-task locking scenarios do not have to
+occur in practice to prove a deadlock: only the simple 'component'
+locking chains have to occur at least once (anytime, in any
+task/context) for the validator to be able to prove correctness. (For
+example, complex deadlocks that would normally need more than 3 CPUs and
+a very unlikely constellation of tasks, irq-contexts and timings to
+occur, can be detected on a plain, lightly loaded single-CPU system as
+well!)
+
+This radically decreases the complexity of locking related QA of the
+kernel: what has to be done during QA is to trigger as many "simple"
+single-task locking dependencies in the kernel as possible, at least
+once, to prove locking correctness - instead of having to trigger every
+possible combination of locking interaction between CPUs, combined with
+every possible hardirq and softirq nesting scenario (which is impossible
+to do in practice).
+
+.. [1]
+
+ assuming that the validator itself is 100% correct, and no other
+ part of the system corrupts the state of the validator in any way.
+ We also assume that all NMI/SMM paths [which could interrupt
+ even hardirq-disabled codepaths] are correct and do not interfere
+ with the validator. We also assume that the 64-bit 'chain hash'
+ value is unique for every lock-chain in the system. Also, lock
+ recursion must not be higher than 20.
+
+Performance:
+------------
+
+The above rules require **massive** amounts of runtime checking. If we did
+that for every lock taken and for every irqs-enable event, it would
+render the system practically unusably slow. The complexity of checking
+is O(N^2), so even with just a few hundred lock-classes we'd have to do
+tens of thousands of checks for every event.
+
+This problem is solved by checking any given 'locking scenario' (unique
+sequence of locks taken after each other) only once. A simple stack of
+held locks is maintained, and a lightweight 64-bit hash value is
+calculated, which hash is unique for every lock chain. The hash value,
+when the chain is validated for the first time, is then put into a hash
+table, which hash-table can be checked in a lockfree manner. If the
+locking chain occurs again later on, the hash table tells us that we
+don't have to validate the chain again.
+
+Troubleshooting:
+----------------
+
+The validator tracks a maximum of MAX_LOCKDEP_KEYS number of lock classes.
+Exceeding this number will trigger the following lockdep warning:
+
+ (DEBUG_LOCKS_WARN_ON(id >= MAX_LOCKDEP_KEYS))
+
+By default, MAX_LOCKDEP_KEYS is currently set to 8191, and typical
+desktop systems have less than 1,000 lock classes, so this warning
+normally results from lock-class leakage or failure to properly
+initialize locks. These two problems are illustrated below:
+
+1. Repeated module loading and unloading while running the validator
+ will result in lock-class leakage. The issue here is that each
+ load of the module will create a new set of lock classes for
+ that module's locks, but module unloading does not remove old
+ classes (see below discussion of reuse of lock classes for why).
+ Therefore, if that module is loaded and unloaded repeatedly,
+ the number of lock classes will eventually reach the maximum.
+
+2. Using structures such as arrays that have large numbers of
+ locks that are not explicitly initialized. For example,
+ a hash table with 8192 buckets where each bucket has its own
+ spinlock_t will consume 8192 lock classes -unless- each spinlock
+ is explicitly initialized at runtime, for example, using the
+ run-time spin_lock_init() as opposed to compile-time initializers
+ such as __SPIN_LOCK_UNLOCKED(). Failure to properly initialize
+ the per-bucket spinlocks would guarantee lock-class overflow.
+ In contrast, a loop that called spin_lock_init() on each lock
+ would place all 8192 locks into a single lock class.
+
+ The moral of this story is that you should always explicitly
+ initialize your locks.
+
+One might argue that the validator should be modified to allow
+lock classes to be reused. However, if you are tempted to make this
+argument, first review the code and think through the changes that would
+be required, keeping in mind that the lock classes to be removed are
+likely to be linked into the lock-dependency graph. This turns out to
+be harder to do than to say.
+
+Of course, if you do run out of lock classes, the next thing to do is
+to find the offending lock classes. First, the following command gives
+you the number of lock classes currently in use along with the maximum::
+
+ grep "lock-classes" /proc/lockdep_stats
+
+This command produces the following output on a modest system::
+
+ lock-classes: 748 [max: 8191]
+
+If the number allocated (748 above) increases continually over time,
+then there is likely a leak. The following command can be used to
+identify the leaking lock classes::
+
+ grep "BD" /proc/lockdep
+
+Run the command and save the output, then compare against the output from
+a later run of this command to identify the leakers. This same output
+can also help you find situations where runtime lock initialization has
+been omitted.