• A
    revert "epoll: support for disabling items, and a self-test app" · a80a6b85
    Andrew Morton 提交于
    Revert commit 03a7beb5 ("epoll: support for disabling items, and a
    self-test app") pending resolution of the issues identified by Michael
    Kerrisk, copied below.
    
    We'll revisit this for 3.8.
    
    : I've taken a look at this patch as it currently stands in 3.7-rc1, and
    : done a bit of testing. (By the way, the test program
    : tools/testing/selftests/epoll/test_epoll.c does not compile...)
    :
    : There are one or two places where the behavior seems a little strange,
    : so I have a question or two at the end of this mail. But other than
    : that, I want to check my understanding so that the interface can be
    : correctly documented.
    :
    : Just to go though my understanding, the problem is the following
    : scenario in a multithreaded application:
    :
    : 1. Multiple threads are performing epoll_wait() operations,
    :    and maintaining a user-space cache that contains information
    :    corresponding to each file descriptor being monitored by
    :    epoll_wait().
    :
    : 2. At some point, a thread wants to delete (EPOLL_CTL_DEL)
    :    a file descriptor from the epoll interest list, and
    :    delete the corresponding record from the user-space cache.
    :
    : 3. The problem with (2) is that some other thread may have
    :    previously done an epoll_wait() that retrieved information
    :    about the fd in question, and may be in the middle of using
    :    information in the cache that relates to that fd. Thus,
    :    there is a potential race.
    :
    : 4. The race can't solved purely in user space, because doing
    :    so would require applying a mutex across the epoll_wait()
    :    call, which would of course blow thread concurrency.
    :
    : Right?
    :
    : Your solution is the EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE operation. I want to
    : confirm my understanding about how to use this flag, since
    : the description that has accompanied the patches so far
    : has been a bit sparse
    :
    : 0. In the scenario you're concerned about, deleting a file
    :    descriptor means (safely) doing the following:
    :    (a) Deleting the file descriptor from the epoll interest list
    :        using EPOLL_CTL_DEL
    :    (b) Deleting the corresponding record in the user-space cache
    :
    : 1. It's only meaningful to use this EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE in
    :    conjunction with EPOLLONESHOT.
    :
    : 2. Using EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE without using EPOLLONESHOT in
    :    conjunction is a logical error.
    :
    : 3. The correct way to code multithreaded applications using
    :    EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE and EPOLLONESHOT is as follows:
    :
    :    a. All EPOLL_CTL_ADD and EPOLL_CTL_MOD operations should
    :       should EPOLLONESHOT.
    :
    :    b. When a thread wants to delete a file descriptor, it
    :       should do the following:
    :
    :       [1] Call epoll_ctl(EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE)
    :       [2] If the return status from epoll_ctl(EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE)
    :           was zero, then the file descriptor can be safely
    :           deleted by the thread that made this call.
    :       [3] If the epoll_ctl(EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE) fails with EBUSY,
    :           then the descriptor is in use. In this case, the calling
    :           thread should set a flag in the user-space cache to
    :           indicate that the thread that is using the descriptor
    :           should perform the deletion operation.
    :
    : Is all of the above correct?
    :
    : The implementation depends on checking on whether
    : (events & ~EP_PRIVATE_BITS) == 0
    : This replies on the fact that EPOLL_CTL_AD and EPOLL_CTL_MOD always
    : set EPOLLHUP and EPOLLERR in the 'events' mask, and EPOLLONESHOT
    : causes those flags (as well as all others in ~EP_PRIVATE_BITS) to be
    : cleared.
    :
    : A corollary to the previous paragraph is that using EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE
    : is only useful in conjunction with EPOLLONESHOT. However, as things
    : stand, one can use EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE on a file descriptor that does
    : not have EPOLLONESHOT set in 'events' This results in the following
    : (slightly surprising) behavior:
    :
    : (a) The first call to epoll_ctl(EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE) returns 0
    :     (the indicator that the file descriptor can be safely deleted).
    : (b) The next call to epoll_ctl(EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE) fails with EBUSY.
    :
    : This doesn't seem particularly useful, and in fact is probably an
    : indication that the user made a logic error: they should only be using
    : epoll_ctl(EPOLL_CTL_DISABLE) on a file descriptor for which
    : EPOLLONESHOT was set in 'events'. If that is correct, then would it
    : not make sense to return an error to user space for this case?
    
    Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
    Cc: "Paton J. Lewis" <palewis@adobe.com>
    Signed-off-by: NAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
    Signed-off-by: NLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
    a80a6b85
eventpoll.c 53.3 KB