workqueue: fix hang involving racing cancel[_delayed]_work_sync()'s for PREEMPT_NONE

cancel[_delayed]_work_sync() are implemented using
__cancel_work_timer() which grabs the PENDING bit using
try_to_grab_pending() and then flushes the work item with PENDING set
to prevent the on-going execution of the work item from requeueing
itself.

try_to_grab_pending() can always grab PENDING bit without blocking
except when someone else is doing the above flushing during
cancelation.  In that case, try_to_grab_pending() returns -ENOENT.  In
this case, __cancel_work_timer() currently invokes flush_work().  The
assumption is that the completion of the work item is what the other
canceling task would be waiting for too and thus waiting for the same
condition and retrying should allow forward progress without excessive
busy looping

Unfortunately, this doesn't work if preemption is disabled or the
latter task has real time priority.  Let's say task A just got woken
up from flush_work() by the completion of the target work item.  If,
before task A starts executing, task B gets scheduled and invokes
__cancel_work_timer() on the same work item, its try_to_grab_pending()
will return -ENOENT as the work item is still being canceled by task A
and flush_work() will also immediately return false as the work item
is no longer executing.  This puts task B in a busy loop possibly
preventing task A from executing and clearing the canceling state on
the work item leading to a hang.

task A			task B			worker

						executing work
__cancel_work_timer()
  try_to_grab_pending()
  set work CANCELING
  flush_work()
    block for work completion
						completion, wakes up A
			__cancel_work_timer()
			while (forever) {
			  try_to_grab_pending()
			    -ENOENT as work is being canceled
			  flush_work()
			    false as work is no longer executing
			}

This patch removes the possible hang by updating __cancel_work_timer()
to explicitly wait for clearing of CANCELING rather than invoking
flush_work() after try_to_grab_pending() fails with -ENOENT.

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/g/20150206171156.GA8942@axis.com

v3: bit_waitqueue() can't be used for work items defined in vmalloc
    area.  Switched to custom wake function which matches the target
    work item and exclusive wait and wakeup.

v2: v1 used wake_up() on bit_waitqueue() which leads to NULL deref if
    the target bit waitqueue has wait_bit_queue's on it.  Use
    DEFINE_WAIT_BIT() and __wake_up_bit() instead.  Reported by Tomeu
    Vizoso.

Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Reported-by: Rabin Vincent <rabin.vincent@axis.com>
Cc: Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu.vizoso@gmail.com>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Tested-by: Jesper Nilsson <jesper.nilsson@axis.com>
Tested-by: Rabin Vincent <rabin.vincent@axis.com>
2 files changed