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authorJason Baron <jbaron@redhat.com>2012-01-13 05:17:43 +0400
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2012-01-13 08:13:04 +0400
commit28d82dc1c4edbc352129f97f4ca22624d1fe61de (patch)
treea6fbd269d17134ff42597b4e02eba4345bf6d901 /include/linux/eventpoll.h
parent2ccd4f4d4737b37e21dd92c8c584c23cd87740a2 (diff)
downloadlinux-28d82dc1c4edbc352129f97f4ca22624d1fe61de.tar.xz
epoll: limit paths
The current epoll code can be tickled to run basically indefinitely in both loop detection path check (on ep_insert()), and in the wakeup paths. The programs that tickle this behavior set up deeply linked networks of epoll file descriptors that cause the epoll algorithms to traverse them indefinitely. A couple of these sample programs have been previously posted in this thread: https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/2/25/297. To fix the loop detection path check algorithms, I simply keep track of the epoll nodes that have been already visited. Thus, the loop detection becomes proportional to the number of epoll file descriptor and links. This dramatically decreases the run-time of the loop check algorithm. In one diabolical case I tried it reduced the run-time from 15 mintues (all in kernel time) to .3 seconds. Fixing the wakeup paths could be done at wakeup time in a similar manner by keeping track of nodes that have already been visited, but the complexity is harder, since there can be multiple wakeups on different cpus...Thus, I've opted to limit the number of possible wakeup paths when the paths are created. This is accomplished, by noting that the end file descriptor points that are found during the loop detection pass (from the newly added link), are actually the sources for wakeup events. I keep a list of these file descriptors and limit the number and length of these paths that emanate from these 'source file descriptors'. In the current implemetation I allow 1000 paths of length 1, 500 of length 2, 100 of length 3, 50 of length 4 and 10 of length 5. Note that it is sufficient to check the 'source file descriptors' reachable from the newly added link, since no other 'source file descriptors' will have newly added links. This allows us to check only the wakeup paths that may have gotten too long, and not re-check all possible wakeup paths on the system. In terms of the path limit selection, I think its first worth noting that the most common case for epoll, is probably the model where you have 1 epoll file descriptor that is monitoring n number of 'source file descriptors'. In this case, each 'source file descriptor' has a 1 path of length 1. Thus, I believe that the limits I'm proposing are quite reasonable and in fact may be too generous. Thus, I'm hoping that the proposed limits will not prevent any workloads that currently work to fail. In terms of locking, I have extended the use of the 'epmutex' to all epoll_ctl add and remove operations. Currently its only used in a subset of the add paths. I need to hold the epmutex, so that we can correctly traverse a coherent graph, to check the number of paths. I believe that this additional locking is probably ok, since its in the setup/teardown paths, and doesn't affect the running paths, but it certainly is going to add some extra overhead. Also, worth noting is that the epmuex was recently added to the ep_ctl add operations in the initial path loop detection code using the argument that it was not on a critical path. Another thing to note here, is the length of epoll chains that is allowed. Currently, eventpoll.c defines: /* Maximum number of nesting allowed inside epoll sets */ #define EP_MAX_NESTS 4 This basically means that I am limited to a graph depth of 5 (EP_MAX_NESTS + 1). However, this limit is currently only enforced during the loop check detection code, and only when the epoll file descriptors are added in a certain order. Thus, this limit is currently easily bypassed. The newly added check for wakeup paths, stricly limits the wakeup paths to a length of 5, regardless of the order in which ep's are linked together. Thus, a side-effect of the new code is a more consistent enforcement of the graph depth. Thus far, I've tested this, using the sample programs previously mentioned, which now either return quickly or return -EINVAL. I've also testing using the piptest.c epoll tester, which showed no difference in performance. I've also created a number of different epoll networks and tested that they behave as expectded. I believe this solves the original diabolical test cases, while still preserving the sane epoll nesting. Signed-off-by: Jason Baron <jbaron@redhat.com> Cc: Nelson Elhage <nelhage@ksplice.com> Cc: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'include/linux/eventpoll.h')
-rw-r--r--include/linux/eventpoll.h1
1 files changed, 1 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/include/linux/eventpoll.h b/include/linux/eventpoll.h
index f362733186a5..657ab55beda0 100644
--- a/include/linux/eventpoll.h
+++ b/include/linux/eventpoll.h
@@ -61,6 +61,7 @@ struct file;
static inline void eventpoll_init_file(struct file *file)
{
INIT_LIST_HEAD(&file->f_ep_links);
+ INIT_LIST_HEAD(&file->f_tfile_llink);
}