The problem with returning -EAGAIN when the waiter state mismatches is that it becomes very hard to proof a bounded execution time on the operation. And seeing that this is a RT operation, this is somewhat important. While in practise; given the previous patch; it will be very unlikely to ever really take more than one or two rounds, proving so becomes rather hard. However, now that modifying wait_list is done while holding both hb->lock and wait_lock, we can avoid the scenario entirely if we acquire wait_lock while still holding hb-lock. Doing a hand-over, without leaving a hole. Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) --- kernel/futex.c | 26 ++++++++++++-------------- 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-) Index: linux-2.6/kernel/futex.c =================================================================== --- linux-2.6.orig/kernel/futex.c +++ linux-2.6/kernel/futex.c @@ -1398,15 +1398,10 @@ static int wake_futex_pi(u32 __user *uad DEFINE_WAKE_Q(wake_q); int ret = 0; - raw_spin_lock_irq(&pi_state->pi_mutex.wait_lock); new_owner = rt_mutex_next_owner(&pi_state->pi_mutex); - if (!new_owner) { + if (WARN_ON_ONCE(!new_owner)) { /* - * Since we held neither hb->lock nor wait_lock when coming - * into this function, we could have raced with futex_lock_pi() - * such that we might observe @this futex_q waiter, but the - * rt_mutex's wait_list can be empty (either still, or again, - * depending on which side we land). + * As per the comment in futex_unlock_pi() this should not happen. * * When this happens, give up our locks and try again, giving * the futex_lock_pi() instance time to complete, either by @@ -2787,15 +2782,18 @@ retry: if (pi_state->owner != current) goto out_unlock; + get_pi_state(pi_state); /* - * Grab a reference on the pi_state and drop hb->lock. + * Since modifying the wait_list is done while holding both + * hb->lock and wait_lock, holding either is sufficient to + * observe it. * - * The reference ensures pi_state lives, dropping the hb->lock - * is tricky.. wake_futex_pi() will take rt_mutex::wait_lock to - * close the races against futex_lock_pi(), but in case of - * _any_ fail we'll abort and retry the whole deal. + * By taking wait_lock while still holding hb->lock, we ensure + * there is no point where we hold neither; and therefore + * wake_futex_pi() must observe a state consistent with what we + * observed. */ - get_pi_state(pi_state); + raw_spin_lock_irq(&pi_state->pi_mutex.wait_lock); spin_unlock(&hb->lock); ret = wake_futex_pi(uaddr, uval, pi_state);