Re: [PATCH] x86/mem_sharing: don't lock parent during fork reset

[Jan Beulich <jbeulich@suse.com>]

On 16.09.2021 17:04, Tamas K Lengyel wrote:
> During fork reset operation the parent domain doesn't need to be gathered using
> rcu_lock_live_remote_domain_by_id as the fork reset doesn't modify anything on
> the parent. The parent is also guaranteed to be paused while forks are active.
> This patch reduces lock contention when performing resets in parallel.

I'm a little in trouble following you here: RCU locks aren't really
locks in that sense, so "lock contention" seems misleading to me. I
can see that rcu_lock_domain_by_id()'s loop is extra overhead.

Furthermore - does the parent being paused really mean the parent
can't go away behind the back of the fork reset? In fork() I see

    if ( rc && rc != -ERESTART )
    {
        domain_unpause(d);
        put_domain(d);
        cd->parent = NULL;
    }

i.e. the ref gets dropped before the parent pointer gets cleared. If
the parent having a reference kept was indeed properly guaranteed, I
agree the code change itself is fine.

(The sequence looks correct at the other put_domain() site [dealing
with the success case of fork(), when the reference gets retained]
in domain_relinquish_resources().)

Jan