• Tetsuo Handa's avatar
    workqueue: Wrap flush_workqueue() using a macro · c4f135d6
    Tetsuo Handa authored
    Since flush operation synchronously waits for completion, flushing
    system-wide WQs (e.g. system_wq) might introduce possibility of deadlock
    due to unexpected locking dependency. Tejun Heo commented at [1] that it
    makes no sense at all to call flush_workqueue() on the shared WQs as the
    caller has no idea what it's gonna end up waiting for.
    
    Although there is flush_scheduled_work() which flushes system_wq WQ with
    "Think twice before calling this function! It's very easy to get into
    trouble if you don't take great care." warning message, syzbot found a
    circular locking dependency caused by flushing system_wq WQ [2].
    
    Therefore, let's change the direction to that developers had better use
    their local WQs if flush_scheduled_work()/flush_workqueue(system_*_wq) is
    inevitable.
    
    Steps for converting system-wide WQs into local WQs are explained at [3],
    and a conversion to stop flushing system-wide WQs is in progress. Now we
    want some mechanism for preventing developers who are not aware of this
    conversion from again start flushing system-wide WQs.
    
    Since I found that WARN_ON() is complete but awkward approach for teaching
    developers about this problem, let's use __compiletime_warning() for
    incomplete but handy approach. For completeness, we will also insert
    WARN_ON() into __flush_workqueue() after all in-tree users stopped calling
    flush_scheduled_work().
    
    Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/YgnQGZWT%2Fn3VAITX@slm.duckdns.org/ [1]
    Link: https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?extid=bde0f89deacca7c765b8 [2]
    Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/49925af7-78a8-a3dd-bce6-cfc02e1a9236@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp [3]
    Signed-off-by: default avatarTetsuo Handa <penguin-kernel@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarTejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
    c4f135d6
workqueue.c 168 KB