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revert "epoll: support for disabling items, and a self-test app"
Revert commit 03a7beb ("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 <[email protected]> Cc: "Paton J. Lewis" <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <[email protected]>
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