[PATCH v6 1/2] posix-timers: Prefer delivery of signals to the current thread

From: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
To: elver@google.com, Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>,
	"Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kselftest@vger.kernel.org,
	Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>,
	kasan-dev@googlegroups.com
Subject: [PATCH v6 1/2] posix-timers: Prefer delivery of signals to the current thread
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2023 13:30:27 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20230316123028.2890338-1-elver@google.com> (raw)

From: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>

POSIX timers using the CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID clock prefer the main
thread of a thread group for signal delivery.     However, this has a
significant downside: it requires waking up a potentially idle thread.

Instead, prefer to deliver signals to the current thread (in the same
thread group) if SIGEV_THREAD_ID is not set by the user. This does not
change guaranteed semantics, since POSIX process CPU time timers have
never guaranteed that signal delivery is to a specific thread (without
SIGEV_THREAD_ID set).

The effect is that we no longer wake up potentially idle threads, and
the kernel is no longer biased towards delivering the timer signal to
any particular thread (which better distributes the timer signals esp.
when multiple timers fire concurrently).

Signed-off-by: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
Suggested-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
---
v6:
- Split test from this patch.
- Update wording on what this patch aims to improve.

v5:
- Rebased onto v6.2.

v4:
- Restructured checks in send_sigqueue() as suggested.

v3:
- Switched to the completely different implementation (much simpler)
  based on the Oleg's idea.

RFC v2:
- Added additional Cc as Thomas asked.
---
 kernel/signal.c | 25 ++++++++++++++++++++++---
 1 file changed, 22 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/kernel/signal.c b/kernel/signal.c
index 8cb28f1df294..605445fa27d4 100644
--- a/kernel/signal.c
+++ b/kernel/signal.c
@@ -1003,8 +1003,7 @@ static void complete_signal(int sig, struct task_struct *p, enum pid_type type)
 	/*
 	 * Now find a thread we can wake up to take the signal off the queue.
 	 *
-	 * If the main thread wants the signal, it gets first crack.
-	 * Probably the least surprising to the average bear.
+	 * Try the suggested task first (may or may not be the main thread).
 	 */
 	if (wants_signal(sig, p))
 		t = p;
@@ -1970,8 +1969,23 @@ int send_sigqueue(struct sigqueue *q, struct pid *pid, enum pid_type type)
 
 	ret = -1;
 	rcu_read_lock();
+	/*
+	 * This function is used by POSIX timers to deliver a timer signal.
+	 * Where type is PIDTYPE_PID (such as for timers with SIGEV_THREAD_ID
+	 * set), the signal must be delivered to the specific thread (queues
+	 * into t->pending).
+	 *
+	 * Where type is not PIDTYPE_PID, signals must just be delivered to the
+	 * current process. In this case, prefer to deliver to current if it is
+	 * in the same thread group as the target, as it avoids unnecessarily
+	 * waking up a potentially idle task.
+	 */
 	t = pid_task(pid, type);
-	if (!t || !likely(lock_task_sighand(t, &flags)))
+	if (!t)
+		goto ret;
+	if (type != PIDTYPE_PID && same_thread_group(t, current))
+		t = current;
+	if (!likely(lock_task_sighand(t, &flags)))
 		goto ret;
 
 	ret = 1; /* the signal is ignored */
@@ -1993,6 +2007,11 @@ int send_sigqueue(struct sigqueue *q, struct pid *pid, enum pid_type type)
 	q->info.si_overrun = 0;
 
 	signalfd_notify(t, sig);
+	/*
+	 * If the type is not PIDTYPE_PID, we just use shared_pending, which
+	 * won't guarantee that the specified task will receive the signal, but
+	 * is sufficient if t==current in the common case.
+	 */
 	pending = (type != PIDTYPE_PID) ? &t->signal->shared_pending : &t->pending;
 	list_add_tail(&q->list, &pending->list);
 	sigaddset(&pending->signal, sig);
-- 
2.40.0.rc1.284.g88254d51c5-goog

