don't use libc.threads_minus_1 as relaxed atomic for skipping locks

after all but the last thread exits, the next thread to observe
libc.threads_minus_1==0 and conclude that it can skip locking fails to
synchronize with any changes to memory that were made by the
last-exiting thread. this can produce data races.

on some archs, at least x86, memory synchronization is unlikely to be
a problem; however, with the inline locks in malloc, skipping the lock
also eliminated the compiler barrier, and caused code that needed to
re-check chunk in-use bits after obtaining the lock to reuse a stale
value, possibly from before the process became single-threaded. this
in turn produced corruption of the heap state.

some uses of libc.threads_minus_1 remain, especially for allocation of
new TLS in the dynamic linker; otherwise, it could be removed
entirely. it's made non-volatile to reflect that the remaining
accesses are only made under lock on the thread list.

instead of libc.threads_minus_1, libc.threaded is now used for
skipping locks. the difference is that libc.threaded is permanently
true once an additional thread has been created. this will produce
some performance regression in processes that are mostly
single-threaded but occasionally creating threads. in the future it
may be possible to bring back the full lock-skipping, but more care
needs to be taken to produce a safe design.

diff --git a/src/internal/libc.h b/src/internal/libc.h
index ac97dc7ebb1ee6fe2bf211121ee019bc14702e21..c0614852eb3cee5a13e9d9423d6eef5177a2b332 100644 (file)
--- a/src/internal/libc.h
+++ b/src/internal/libc.h
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ struct __libc {
        int can_do_threads;
        int threaded;
        int secure;
-       volatile int threads_minus_1;
+       int threads_minus_1;
        size_t *auxv;
        struct tls_module *tls_head;
        size_t tls_size, tls_align, tls_cnt;

diff --git a/src/malloc/malloc.c b/src/malloc/malloc.c
index 96982596b94d8c638eb716f1b0000081288e7e8c..2553a62e0d09d0b6e0fec141c439f57a4028535e 100644 (file)
--- a/src/malloc/malloc.c
+++ b/src/malloc/malloc.c
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ int __malloc_replaced;
 
 static inline void lock(volatile int *lk)
 {
-       if (libc.threads_minus_1)
+       if (libc.threaded)
                while(a_swap(lk, 1)) __wait(lk, lk+1, 1, 1);
 }
 

diff --git a/src/thread/__lock.c b/src/thread/__lock.c
index 45557c8885ddefc3a05d010e85014b551352afb7..5b9b144e9c83c14f6cb54f80af889b060ec62660 100644 (file)
--- a/src/thread/__lock.c
+++ b/src/thread/__lock.c
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
 
 void __lock(volatile int *l)
 {
-       if (!libc.threads_minus_1) return;
+       if (!libc.threaded) return;
        /* fast path: INT_MIN for the lock, +1 for the congestion */
        int current = a_cas(l, 0, INT_MIN + 1);
        if (!current) return;