Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v3] monitor: let cur_mon be per-thread

[Peter Xu]

On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 01:12:24PM +0800, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 11:05:47AM +0200, Markus Armbruster wrote:
> > Stefan Hajnoczi <address@hidden> writes:
> > 
> > > On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 05:17:32PM +0800, Peter Xu wrote:
> > >> On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 04:37:48PM +0800, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
> > >> > On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 02:11:08PM +0800, Peter Xu wrote:
> > >> > > In the future the monitor iothread may be accessing the cur_mon as
> > >> > > well (via monitor_qmp_dispatch_one()).  Before we introduce a real
> > >> > > Out-Of-Band command, let's convert the cur_mon variable to be a
> > >> > > per-thread variable to make sure there won't be a race between 
> > >> > > threads.
> > >> > >
> > >> > > Note that thread variables are not initialized to a valid value when 
> > >> > > new
> > >> > > thread is created.  However for our case we don't need to set it up,
> > >> > > since the cur_mon variable is only used in such a pattern:
> > >> > > 
> > >> > >   old_mon = cur_mon;
> > >> > >   cur_mon = xxx;
> > >> > >   (do something, read cur_mon if necessary in the stack)
> > >> > >   cur_mon = old_mon;
> > >> > > 
> > >> > > It plays a role as stack variable, so no need to be initialized at 
> > >> > > all.
> > >> > > We only need to make sure the variable won't be changed unexpectedly 
> > >> > > by
> > >> > > other threads.
> > >> > > 
> > >> > > Signed-off-by: Peter Xu <address@hidden>
> > >> > > ---
> > >> > > v3:
> > >> > > - fix code style warning from patchew
> > >> > > v2:
> > >> > > - drop qemu-thread changes
> > >> > > ---
> > >> > >  include/monitor/monitor.h | 2 +-
> > >> > >  monitor.c                 | 2 +-
> > >> > >  stubs/monitor.c           | 2 +-
> > >> > >  tests/test-util-sockets.c | 2 +-
> > >> > >  4 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
> > >> > 
> > >> > The Monitor object is not fully thread-safe, so although the correct
> > >> > cur_mon is now accessible, code may still be unsafe.  For example,
> > >> > monitor_get_fd(cur_mon, ...) is not thread-safe and must not be used by
> > >> > OOB commands.
> > >> 
> > >> IMHO things like monitor_get_fd() should only be called in QMP
> > >> context, so there should always be a monitor_qmp_dispatch_one() in the
> > >> stack already (no matter whether it is in main thread or the monitor
> > >> iothread), which means that cur_mon should have been setup.  So IMHO
> > >> it's a programming error if monitor_get_fd() is called without correct
> > >> cur_mon setup after this patch.
> > >
> > > The pointer value of cur_mon is not the issue, you have made that work
> > > correctly.  The problem is that some monitor.h APIs do not access the
> > > Monitor object in a thread-safe fashion.
> > >
> > > Two QMP commands executing simultaneously in the main loop thread and
> > > the monitor IOThread can hit race conditions.  The example I gave was
> > > the monitor_get_fd() API, which iterates and modifies the mon->fds
> > > QLIST without a lock.
> > >
> > > Please audit monitor.h and either make things thread-safe or document
> > > the thread-safety rules (e.g. "This function cannot be called from
> > > out-of-band QMP context").  This wasn't necessary before but now that
> > > you are adding multi-threading it is.
> > 
> > Code working with the current thread's monitor via thread-local cur_mon
> > is easier to analyze in some ways than code working with a Monitor *
> > parameter: the latter can interfere with some other thread's monitor,
> > and you may have to argue what values the parameter can take.
> > 
> > You might want to replace parameters by cur_mon in certain cases.
> > 
> > Funnily, the plan used to be the opposite.  Commit 376253ece48: "On the
> > mid or long term, those use case will be obsoleted so that [cur_mon] can
> > be removed again."

It's a pity that we didn't follow the plan!

> 
> Either way, the issue I described can still happen since two QMP
> commands for a single Monitor object can execute simultaneously in the
> main loop thread and the monitor IOThread.
> 
> I'm basically warning that QMP multi-threading isn't a solved problem
> yet.  It needs to be solved by a combination of making things
> thread-safe, documentation, and assertions so code fails loudly and
> early when called from an unsupported context.

I got your point now.  I'll went through monitor.h to see what I can
pick up besides the monitor_get_fd() related APIs.  I would prefer
locks comparing to documents if there aren't much work.

Thanks, Markus & Stefan.

-- 
Peter Xu