Re: [RFC PATCH 2/2] migration/multifd: Move semaphore release into main thread

[Peter Xu]

On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 09:05:41AM -0300, Fabiano Rosas wrote:

[...]

> > Then assuming we have a clear model with all these threads issue fixed (no
> > matter whether we'd shrink 2N threads into N threads), then what we need to
> > do, IMHO, is making sure to join() all of them before destroying anything
> > (say, per-channel MultiFDSendParams).  Then when we destroy everything
> > safely, either mutex/sem/etc..  Because no one will race us anymore.
> 
> This doesn't address the race. There's a data dependency between the
> multifd channels and the migration thread around the channels_ready
> semaphore. So we cannot join the migration thread because it could be
> stuck waiting for the semaphore, which means we cannot join+cleanup the
> channel thread because the semaphore is still being used.

I think this is the major part of confusion, on why this can happen.

The problem is afaik multifd_save_cleanup() is only called by
migrate_fd_cleanup(), which is further only called in:

  1) migrate_fd_cleanup_bh()
  2) migrate_fd_connect()

For 1): it's only run when migration comletes/fails/etc. (in all cases,
right before it quits..) and then kicks off migrate_fd_cleanup_schedule().
So migration thread shouldn't be stuck, afaiu, or it won't be able to kick
that BH.

For 2): it's called by the main thread, where migration thread should have
not yet been created.

With that, I don't see how migrate_fd_cleanup() would need to worry about
migration thread

Did I miss something?

Thanks,

-- 
Peter Xu