[PATCH] task: RCU protect task->usage

A big problem with rcu protected data structures that are also reference
counted is that you must jump through several hoops to increase the reference
count.  I think someone finally implemented atomic_inc_not_zero(&count) to
automate the common case.  Unfortunately this means you must special case the
rcu access case.

When data structures are only visible via rcu in a manner that is not
determined by the reference count on the object (i.e.  tasks are visible until
their zombies are reaped) there is a much simpler technique we can employ.
Simply delaying the decrement of the reference count until the rcu interval is
over.

What that means is that the proc code that looks up a task and later
wants to sleep can now do:

rcu_read_lock();
task = find_task_by_pid(some_pid);
if (task) {
	get_task_struct(task);
}
rcu_read_unlock();

The effect on the rest of the kernel is that put_task_struct becomes cheaper
and immediate, and in the case where the task has been reaped it frees the
task immediate instead of unnecessarily waiting an until the rcu interval is
over.

Cleanup of task_struct does not happen when its reference count drops to
zero, instead cleanup happens when release_task is called.  Tasks can only
be looked up via rcu before release_task is called.  All rcu protected
members of task_struct are freed by release_task.

Therefore we can move call_rcu from put_task_struct into release_task.  And
we can modify release_task to not immediately release the reference count
but instead have it call put_task_struct from the function it gives to
call_rcu.

The end result:

- get_task_struct is safe in an rcu context where we have just looked
  up the task.

- put_task_struct() simplifies into its old pre rcu self.

This reorganization also makes put_task_struct uncallable from modules as
it is not exported but it does not appear to be called from any modules so
this should not be an issue, and is trivially fixed.

Signed-off-by: Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>

1 files changed, 6 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/kernel/exit.c b/kernel/exit.c
index bc0ec67..6c2eeb8 100644
--- a/kernel/exit.c
+++ b/kernel/exit.c
@@ -127,6 +127,11 @@ static void __exit_signal(struct task_struct *tsk)
 	}
 }
 
+static void delayed_put_task_struct(struct rcu_head *rhp)
+{
+	put_task_struct(container_of(rhp, struct task_struct, rcu));
+}
+
 void release_task(struct task_struct * p)
 {
 	int zap_leader;
@@ -168,7 +173,7 @@ repeat:
 	spin_unlock(&p->proc_lock);
 	proc_pid_flush(proc_dentry);
 	release_thread(p);
-	put_task_struct(p);
+	call_rcu(&p->rcu, delayed_put_task_struct);
 
 	p = leader;
 	if (unlikely(zap_leader))