• Erica Bugden's avatar
    ftrace: Add missing check for existing hwlat thread · 82fbc8c4
    Erica Bugden authored
    The hwlat tracer uses a kernel thread to measure latencies. The function
    that creates this kernel thread, start_kthread(), can be called when the
    tracer is initialized and when the tracer is explicitly enabled.
    start_kthread() does not check if there is an existing hwlat kernel
    thread and will create a new one each time it is called.
    
    This causes the reference to the previous thread to be lost. Without the
    thread reference, the old kernel thread becomes unstoppable and
    continues to use CPU time even after the hwlat tracer has been disabled.
    This problem can be observed when a system is booted with tracing
    enabled and the hwlat tracer is configured like this:
    
    	echo hwlat > current_tracer; echo 1 > tracing_on
    
    Add the missing check for an existing kernel thread in start_kthread()
    to prevent this problem. This function and the rest of the hwlat kernel
    thread setup and teardown are already serialized because they are called
    through the tracer core code with trace_type_lock held.
    
    [
     Note, this only fixes the symptom. The real fix was not to call
     this function when tracing_on was already one. But this still makes
     the code more robust, so we'll add it.
    ]
    
    Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1533120354-22923-1-git-send-email-erica.bugden@linutronix.deSigned-off-by: default avatarErica Bugden <erica.bugden@linutronix.de>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarSteven Rostedt (VMware) <rostedt@goodmis.org>
    82fbc8c4
trace_hwlat.c 16.7 KB