[Qemu-devel] [PATCH] osdep: initialize glib threads in all QEMU tools

[Stefan Hajnoczi]

glib versions prior to 2.31.0 require an explicit g_thread_init() call
to enable multi-threading.

Failure to initialize threading causes glib to take single-threaded code
paths without synchronization.  For example, the g_slice allocator will
crash due to race conditions.

Fix this for all QEMU tool programs (qemu-nbd, qemu-io, qemu-img) by
moving the g_thread_init() call from vl.c:main() into a new
osdep.c:thread_init() constructor function.

thread_init() has __attribute__((constructor)) and is automatically
invoked by the runtime during startup.

We can now drop the "simple" trace backend's g_thread_init() call since
thread_init() already called it.

Note that we must keep coroutine-gthread.c's g_thread_init() call which
is located in a constructor function.  There is no guarantee for
constructor function ordering so thread_init() may only be called later.

Reported-by: Mario de Chenno <address@hidden>
Signed-off-by: Stefan Hajnoczi <address@hidden>
---
 trace/simple.c |  9 ---------
 util/osdep.c   | 18 ++++++++++++++++++
 vl.c           |  8 --------
 3 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-)

diff --git a/trace/simple.c b/trace/simple.c
index 1e3f691..7833309 100644
--- a/trace/simple.c
+++ b/trace/simple.c
@@ -404,15 +404,6 @@ bool trace_backend_init(const char *events, const char 
*file)
 {
     GThread *thread;
 
-    if (!g_thread_supported()) {
-#if !GLIB_CHECK_VERSION(2, 31, 0)
-        g_thread_init(NULL);
-#else
-        fprintf(stderr, "glib threading failed to initialize.\n");
-        exit(1);
-#endif
-    }
-
 #if !GLIB_CHECK_VERSION(2, 31, 0)
     trace_available_cond = g_cond_new();
     trace_empty_cond = g_cond_new();
diff --git a/util/osdep.c b/util/osdep.c
index 62072b4..e29ba6f 100644
--- a/util/osdep.c
+++ b/util/osdep.c
@@ -437,6 +437,24 @@ int socket_init(void)
     return 0;
 }
 
+/* Ensure that glib is running in multi-threaded mode */
+static void __attribute__((constructor)) thread_init(void)
+{
+    if (!g_thread_supported()) {
+#if !GLIB_CHECK_VERSION(2, 31, 0)
+        /* Old versions of glib require explicit initialization.  Failure to do
+         * this results in the single-threaded code paths being taken inside
+         * glib.  For example, the g_slice allocator will not be thread-safe
+         * and cause crashes.
+         */
+        g_thread_init(NULL);
+#else
+        fprintf(stderr, "glib threading failed to initialize.\n");
+        exit(1);
+#endif
+    }
+}
+
 #ifndef CONFIG_IOVEC
 /* helper function for iov_send_recv() */
 static ssize_t
diff --git a/vl.c b/vl.c
index 983cdc6..e2dee8e 100644
--- a/vl.c
+++ b/vl.c
@@ -2857,14 +2857,6 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv, char **envp)
     error_set_progname(argv[0]);
 
     g_mem_set_vtable(&mem_trace);
-    if (!g_thread_supported()) {
-#if !GLIB_CHECK_VERSION(2, 31, 0)
-        g_thread_init(NULL);
-#else
-        fprintf(stderr, "glib threading failed to initialize.\n");
-        exit(1);
-#endif
-    }
 
     module_call_init(MODULE_INIT_QOM);
 
-- 
1.8.3.1