Breno reported significant c2c HITM in a futex hash heavy workload.
It turns out that the hash bucket to private hash table reverse pointer
(futex_hash_bucket::priv) was to blame. Notably when the hash buckets are
heavily contended, the: 'fph = bh->priv;' load in futex_hash() will typically
miss and consequently become quite expensive.
Since this load in particular is quite superfluous, removing it is fairly
straight forward. However, removing it does not in fact achieve anything much.
The pain moves to the next user, notably: futex_hash_put().
Therefore rework the whole private hash refcounting to avoid needing this back
pointer (and removing it). Instead of passing around 'struct futex_hash_bucket
*hb', pass around a new structure that contains it and the related 'struct
futex_private_hash *fph' pointer in tandem.
Funnily this turns out to remove more code than it adds and significantly
improves futex hash performance (as measured by 'perf bench futex hash'):
SKL dual socket 112 threads:
Baseline Patched
shared (16k) 1571857 1641435 + 4.4%
autosize (512) 646390 903371 +39.7%
-b 256 464395 587014 +26.4%
-b 512 715687 995943 +39.2%
-b 1024 995085 1396328 +40.3%
-b 2048 1293114 1668395 +29.0%
-b 4096 2124438 2240228 + 5.5%
Zen3 dual socket 256 threads:
Baseline Patched
shared (16k) 1275840 1381279 + 8.2%
autosize (512) 1252745 1482179 +18.3%
-b 256 856274 955455 +11.5%
-b 512 1267490 1544010 +21.8%
-b 1024 1424013 1625424 +14.1%
-b 2048 1505181 1669342 +10.9%
-b 4096 1465993 1688932 +15.2%
AMD EPYC 9D64 (Zen4, single socket) 176 threads:
Baseline Patched Delta
shared (16k) 1,230,599 1,368,655 +11.2%
autosize (1024) 1,285,440 1,556,946 +21.1%
-b 256 1,341,471 1,520,303 +13.3%
-b 512 1,438,330 1,599,319 +11.2%
-b 1024 1,443,772 1,622,493 +12.4%
-b 2048 1,472,108 1,643,975 +11.7%
-b 4096 1,333,098 1,570,897 +17.8%
Reported-by: Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>
Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Tested-by: Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>
Tested-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@kernel.org>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260610135510.GB1430057@noisy.programming.kicks-ass.net
Unlocking robust non-PI futexes happens in user space with the following
sequence:
1) robust_list_set_op_pending(mutex);
2) robust_list_remove(mutex);
lval = 0;
3) lval = atomic_xchg(lock, lval);
4) if (lval & WAITERS)
5) sys_futex(WAKE,....);
6) robust_list_clear_op_pending();
That opens a window between #3 and #6 where the mutex could be acquired by
some other task which observes that it is the last user and:
A) unmaps the mutex memory
B) maps a different file, which ends up covering the same address
When the original task exits before reaching #6 then the kernel robust list
handling observes the pending op entry and tries to fix up user space.
In case that the newly mapped data contains the TID of the exiting thread
at the address of the mutex/futex the kernel will set the owner died bit in
that memory and therefore corrupting unrelated data.
PI futexes have a similar problem both for the non-contented user space
unlock and the in kernel unlock:
1) robust_list_set_op_pending(mutex);
2) robust_list_remove(mutex);
lval = gettid();
3) if (!atomic_try_cmpxchg(lock, lval, 0))
4) sys_futex(UNLOCK_PI,....);
5) robust_list_clear_op_pending();
Address the first part of the problem where the futexes have waiters and
need to enter the kernel anyway. Add a new FUTEX_ROBUST_UNLOCK flag, which
is valid for the sys_futex() FUTEX_UNLOCK_PI, FUTEX_WAKE, FUTEX_WAKE_BITSET
operations.
This deliberately omits FUTEX_WAKE_OP from this treatment as it's unclear
whether this is needed and there is no usage of it in glibc either to
investigate.
For the futex2 syscall family this needs to be implemented with a new
syscall.
The sys_futex() case [ab]uses the @uaddr2 argument to hand the pointer to
robust_list_head::list_pending_op into the kernel. This argument is only
evaluated when the FUTEX_ROBUST_UNLOCK bit is set and is therefore backward
compatible.
This is an explicit argument to avoid the lookup of the robust list pointer
and retrieving the pending op pointer from there. User space has the
pointer already available so it can just put it into the @uaddr2
argument. Aside of that this allows the usage of multiple robust lists in
the future without any changes to the internal functions as they just operate
on the provided pointer.
This requires a second flag FUTEX_ROBUST_LIST32 which indicates that the
robust list pointer points to an u32 and not to an u64. This is required
for two reasons:
1) sys_futex() has no compat variant
2) The gaming emulators use both both 64-bit and compat 32-bit robust
lists in the same 64-bit application
As a consequence 32-bit applications have to set this flag unconditionally
so they can run on a 64-bit kernel in compat mode unmodified. 32-bit
kernels return an error code when the flag is not set. 64-bit kernels will
happily clear the full 64 bits if user space fails to set it.
In case of FUTEX_UNLOCK_PI this clears the robust list pending op when the
unlock succeeded. In case of errors, the user space value is still locked
by the caller and therefore the above cannot happen.
In case of FUTEX_WAKE* this does the unlock of the futex in the kernel and
clears the robust list pending op when the unlock was successful. If not,
the user space value is still locked and user space has to deal with the
returned error. That means that the unlocking of non-PI robust futexes has
to use the same try_cmpxchg() unlock scheme as PI futexes.
If the clearing of the pending list op fails (fault) then the kernel clears
the registered robust list pointer if it matches to prevent that exit()
will try to handle invalid data. That's a valid paranoid decision because
the robust list head sits usually in the TLS and if the TLS is not longer
accessible then the chance for fixing up the resulting mess is very close
to zero.
The problem of non-contended unlocks still exists and will be addressed
separately.
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Reviewed-by: André Almeida <andrealmeid@igalia.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260602090535.670514505@kernel.org
Having all these members in task_struct along with the required #ifdeffery is annoying, does not allow efficient initializing of the data with memset() and makes extending it tedious. Move it into a data structure and fix up all usage sites. Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@kernel.org> Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org> Reviewed-by: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com> Reviewed-by: André Almeida <andrealmeid@igalia.com> Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260602090535.308220888@kernel.org
Pull locking updates from Ingo Molnar:
"Mutexes:
- Add killable flavor to guard definitions (Davidlohr Bueso)
- Remove the list_head from struct mutex (Matthew Wilcox)
- Rename mutex_init_lockep() (Davidlohr Bueso)
rwsems:
- Remove the list_head from struct rw_semaphore and
replace it with a single pointer (Matthew Wilcox)
- Fix logic error in rwsem_del_waiter() (Andrei Vagin)
Semaphores:
- Remove the list_head from struct semaphore (Matthew Wilcox)
Jump labels:
- Use ATOMIC_INIT() for initialization of .enabled (Thomas Weißschuh)
- Remove workaround for old compilers in initializations
(Thomas Weißschuh)
Lock context analysis changes and improvements:
- Add context analysis for rwsems (Peter Zijlstra)
- Fix rwlock and spinlock lock context annotations (Bart Van Assche)
- Fix rwlock support in <linux/spinlock_up.h> (Bart Van Assche)
- Add lock context annotations in the spinlock implementation
(Bart Van Assche)
- signal: Fix the lock_task_sighand() annotation (Bart Van Assche)
- ww-mutex: Fix the ww_acquire_ctx function annotations
(Bart Van Assche)
- Add lock context support in do_raw_{read,write}_trylock()
(Bart Van Assche)
- arm64, compiler-context-analysis: Permit alias analysis through
__READ_ONCE() with CONFIG_LTO=y (Marco Elver)
- Add __cond_releases() (Peter Zijlstra)
- Add context analysis for mutexes (Peter Zijlstra)
- Add context analysis for rtmutexes (Peter Zijlstra)
- Convert futexes to compiler context analysis (Peter Zijlstra)
Rust integration updates:
- Add atomic fetch_sub() implementation (Andreas Hindborg)
- Refactor various rust_helper_ methods for expansion (Boqun Feng)
- Add Atomic<*{mut,const} T> support (Boqun Feng)
- Add atomic operation helpers over raw pointers (Boqun Feng)
- Add performance-optimal Flag type for atomic booleans, to avoid
slow byte-sized RMWs on architectures that don't support them.
(FUJITA Tomonori)
- Misc cleanups and fixes (Andreas Hindborg, Boqun Feng, FUJITA
Tomonori)
LTO support updates:
- arm64: Optimize __READ_ONCE() with CONFIG_LTO=y (Marco Elver)
- compiler: Simplify generic RELOC_HIDE() (Marco Elver)
Miscellaneous fixes and cleanups by Peter Zijlstra, Randy Dunlap,
Thomas Weißschuh, Davidlohr Bueso and Mikhail Gavrilov"
* tag 'locking-core-2026-04-13' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip: (39 commits)
compiler: Simplify generic RELOC_HIDE()
locking: Add lock context annotations in the spinlock implementation
locking: Add lock context support in do_raw_{read,write}_trylock()
locking: Fix rwlock support in <linux/spinlock_up.h>
lockdep: Raise default stack trace limits when KASAN is enabled
cleanup: Optimize guards
jump_label: remove workaround for old compilers in initializations
jump_label: use ATOMIC_INIT() for initialization of .enabled
futex: Convert to compiler context analysis
locking/rwsem: Fix logic error in rwsem_del_waiter()
locking/rwsem: Add context analysis
locking/rtmutex: Add context analysis
locking/mutex: Add context analysis
compiler-context-analysys: Add __cond_releases()
locking/mutex: Remove the list_head from struct mutex
locking/semaphore: Remove the list_head from struct semaphore
locking/rwsem: Remove the list_head from struct rw_semaphore
rust: atomic: Update a safety comment in impl of `fetch_add()`
rust: sync: atomic: Update documentation for `fetch_add()`
rust: sync: atomic: Add fetch_sub()
...
Fuzzying/stressing futexes triggered:
WARNING: kernel/futex/core.c:825 at wait_for_owner_exiting+0x7a/0x80, CPU#11: futex_lock_pi_s/524
When futex_lock_pi_atomic() sees the owner is exiting, it returns -EBUSY
and stores a refcounted task pointer in 'exiting'.
After wait_for_owner_exiting() consumes that reference, the local pointer
is never reset to nil. Upon a retry, if futex_lock_pi_atomic() returns a
different error, the bogus pointer is passed to wait_for_owner_exiting().
CPU0 CPU1 CPU2
futex_lock_pi(uaddr)
// acquires the PI futex
exit()
futex_cleanup_begin()
futex_state = EXITING;
futex_lock_pi(uaddr)
futex_lock_pi_atomic()
attach_to_pi_owner()
// observes EXITING
*exiting = owner; // takes ref
return -EBUSY
wait_for_owner_exiting(-EBUSY, owner)
put_task_struct(); // drops ref
// exiting still points to owner
goto retry;
futex_lock_pi_atomic()
lock_pi_update_atomic()
cmpxchg(uaddr)
*uaddr ^= WAITERS // whatever
// value changed
return -EAGAIN;
wait_for_owner_exiting(-EAGAIN, exiting) // stale
WARN_ON_ONCE(exiting)
Fix this by resetting upon retry, essentially aligning it with requeue_pi.
Fixes: 3ef240eaff36 ("futex: Prevent exit livelock")
Signed-off-by: Davidlohr Bueso <dave@stgolabs.net>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@kernel.org>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260326001759.4129680-1-dave@stgolabs.net
Convert the sparse annotations over to the new compiler context analysis stuff. Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org> Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260121111213.950376128@infradead.org
This was done entirely with mindless brute force, using
git grep -l '\<k[vmz]*alloc_objs*(.*, GFP_KERNEL)' |
xargs sed -i 's/\(alloc_objs*(.*\), GFP_KERNEL)/\1)/'
to convert the new alloc_obj() users that had a simple GFP_KERNEL
argument to just drop that argument.
Note that due to the extreme simplicity of the scripting, any slightly
more complex cases spread over multiple lines would not be triggered:
they definitely exist, but this covers the vast bulk of the cases, and
the resulting diff is also then easier to check automatically.
For the same reason the 'flex' versions will be done as a separate
conversion.
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
This is the result of running the Coccinelle script from scripts/coccinelle/api/kmalloc_objs.cocci. The script is designed to avoid scalar types (which need careful case-by-case checking), and instead replace kmalloc-family calls that allocate struct or union object instances: Single allocations: kmalloc(sizeof(TYPE), ...) are replaced with: kmalloc_obj(TYPE, ...) Array allocations: kmalloc_array(COUNT, sizeof(TYPE), ...) are replaced with: kmalloc_objs(TYPE, COUNT, ...) Flex array allocations: kmalloc(struct_size(PTR, FAM, COUNT), ...) are replaced with: kmalloc_flex(*PTR, FAM, COUNT, ...) (where TYPE may also be *VAR) The resulting allocations no longer return "void *", instead returning "TYPE *". Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>
futex_lock_pi() and __fixup_pi_state_owner() acquire the futex_q::lock_ptr without holding a reference assuming the previously obtained hash bucket and the assigned lock_ptr are still valid. This isn't the case once the private hash can be resized and becomes invalid after the reference drop. Introduce futex_q_lockptr_lock() to lock the hash bucket recorded in futex_q::lock_ptr. The lock pointer is read in a RCU section to ensure that it does not go away if the hash bucket has been replaced and the old pointer has been observed. After locking the pointer needs to be compared to check if it changed. If so then the hash bucket has been replaced and the user has been moved to the new one and lock_ptr has been updated. The lock operation needs to be redone in this case. The locked hash bucket is not returned. A special case is an early return in futex_lock_pi() (due to signal or timeout) and a successful futex_wait_requeue_pi(). In both cases a valid futex_q::lock_ptr is expected (and its matching hash bucket) but since the waiter has been removed from the hash this can no longer be guaranteed. Therefore before the waiter is removed and a reference is acquired which is later dropped by the waiter to avoid a resize. Add futex_q_lockptr_lock() and use it. Acquire an additional reference in requeue_pi_wake_futex() and futex_unlock_pi() while the futex_q is removed, denote this extra reference in futex_q::drop_hb_ref and let the waiter drop the reference in this case. Signed-off-by: Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <bigeasy@linutronix.de> Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20250416162921.513656-11-bigeasy@linutronix.de
This gets us: hb = futex_hash(key) /* gets hb and inc users */ futex_hash_get(hb) /* inc users */ futex_hash_put(hb) /* dec users */ Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org> Signed-off-by: Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <bigeasy@linutronix.de> Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20250416162921.513656-7-bigeasy@linutronix.de