• Venkatesh Duggirala's avatar
    Bug#17283409 4-WAY DEADLOCK: ZOMBIES, PURGING BINLOGS, · 2870bd74
    Venkatesh Duggirala authored
    SHOW PROCESSLIST, SHOW BINLOGS
    
    Problem:  A deadlock was occurring when 4 threads were
    involved in acquiring locks in the following way
    Thread 1: Dump thread ( Slave is reconnecting, so on
                  Master, a new dump thread is trying kill
                  zombie dump threads. It acquired thread's
                  LOCK_thd_data and it is about to acquire
                  mysys_var->current_mutex ( which LOCK_log)
    Thread 2: Application thread is executing show binlogs and
                   acquired LOCK_log and it is about to acquire
                   LOCK_index.
    Thread 3: Application thread is executing Purge binary logs
                   and acquired LOCK_index and it is about to
                   acquire LOCK_thread_count.
    Thread 4: Application thread is executing show processlist
                   and acquired LOCK_thread_count and it is
                   about to acquire zombie dump thread's
                   LOCK_thd_data.
    Deadlock Cycle:
         Thread 1 -> Thread 2 -> Thread 3-> Thread 4 ->Thread 1
    
    The same above deadlock was observed even when thread 4 is
    executing 'SELECT * FROM information_schema.processlist' command and
    acquired LOCK_thread_count and it is about to acquire zombie
    dump thread's LOCK_thd_data.
    
    Analysis:
    There are four locks involved in the deadlock.  LOCK_log,
    LOCK_thread_count, LOCK_index and LOCK_thd_data.
    LOCK_log, LOCK_thread_count, LOCK_index are global mutexes
    where as LOCK_thd_data is local to a thread.
    We can divide these four locks in two groups.
    Group 1 consists of LOCK_log and LOCK_index and the order
    should be LOCK_log followed by LOCK_index.
    Group 2 consists of other two mutexes
    LOCK_thread_count, LOCK_thd_data and the order should
    be LOCK_thread_count followed by LOCK_thd_data.
    Unfortunately, there is no specific predefined lock order defined
    to follow in the MySQL system when it comes to locks across these
    two groups. In the above problematic example,
    there is no problem in the way we are acquiring the locks
    if you see each thread individually.
    But If you combine all 4 threads, they end up in a deadlock.
    
    Fix: 
    Since everything seems to be fine in the way threads are taking locks,
    In this patch We are changing the duration of the locks in Thread 4
    to break the deadlock. i.e., before the patch, Thread 4
    ('show processlist' command) mysqld_list_processes()
    function acquires LOCK_thread_count for the complete duration
    of the function and it also acquires/releases
    each thread's LOCK_thd_data.
    
    LOCK_thread_count is used to protect addition and
    deletion of threads in global threads list. While show
    process list is looping through all the existing threads,
    it will be a problem if a thread is exited but there is no problem
    if a new thread is added to the system. Hence a new mutex is
    introduced "LOCK_thd_remove" which will protect deletion
    of a thread from global threads list. All threads which are
    getting exited should acquire LOCK_thd_remove
    followed by LOCK_thread_count. (It should take LOCK_thread_count
    also because other places of the code still thinks that exit thread
    is protected with LOCK_thread_count. In this fix, we are changing
    only 'show process list' query logic )
    (Eg: unlink_thd logic will be protected with
    LOCK_thd_remove).
    
    Logic of mysqld_list_processes(or file_schema_processlist)
    will now be protected with 'LOCK_thd_remove' instead of
    'LOCK_thread_count'.
    
    Now the new locking order after this patch is:
    LOCK_thd_remove -> LOCK_thd_data -> LOCK_log ->
    LOCK_index -> LOCK_thread_count
    2870bd74
mysqld.h 18.6 KB