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  • Steven Rostedt (Red Hat)'s avatar
    tracing/fgraph: Adjust fgraph depth before calling trace return callback · 03274a3f
    Steven Rostedt (Red Hat) authored
    
    
    While debugging the virtual cputime with the function graph tracer
    with a max_depth of 1 (most common use of the max_depth so far),
    I found that I was missing kernel execution because of a race condition.
    
    The code for the return side of the function has a slight race:
    
    	ftrace_pop_return_trace(&trace, &ret, frame_pointer);
    	trace.rettime = trace_clock_local();
    	ftrace_graph_return(&trace);
    	barrier();
    	current->curr_ret_stack--;
    
    The ftrace_pop_return_trace() initializes the trace structure for
    the callback. The ftrace_graph_return() uses the trace structure
    for its own use as that structure is on the stack and is local
    to this function. Then the curr_ret_stack is decremented which
    is what the trace.depth is set to.
    
    If an interrupt comes in after the ftrace_graph_return() but
    before the curr_ret_stack, then the called function will get
    a depth of 2. If max_depth is set to 1 this function will be
    ignored.
    
    The problem is that the trace has already been called, and the
    timestamp for that trace will not reflect the time the function
    was about to re-enter userspace. Calls to the interrupt will not
    be traced because the max_depth has prevented this.
    
    To solve this issue, the ftrace_graph_return() can safely be
    moved after the current->curr_ret_stack has been updated.
    This way the timestamp for the return callback will reflect
    the actual time.
    
    If an interrupt comes in after the curr_ret_stack update and
    ftrace_graph_return(), it will be traced. It may look a little
    confusing to see it within the other function, but at least
    it will not be lost.
    
    Cc: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarSteven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
    03274a3f