[Devel] Re: [PATCH 4/4] cgroup freezer: --- replacement patch 4/4 (a)

[Matt Helsley]

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 08:10:24PM -0400, Oren Laadan wrote:
> 
> From 6cdb7d9504a19ad88e6da8ad85374267c7acb1b2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Matt Helsley <matthltc at us.ibm.com>
> Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 02:31:21 -0700
> Subject: [PATCH] cgroup freezer: Add CHECKPOINTING state to safeguard container checkpoint
> 
> The CHECKPOINTING state prevents userspace from unfreezing tasks until
> sys_checkpoint() is finished. When doing container checkpoint userspace
> will do:
> 
> 	echo FROZEN > /cgroups/my_container/freezer.state
> 	...
> 	rc = sys_checkpoint( <pid of container root> );
> 
> To ensure a consistent checkpoint image userspace should not be allowed
> to thaw the cgroup (echo THAWED > /cgroups/my_container/freezer.state)
> during checkpoint.
> 
> "CHECKPOINTING" can only be set on a "FROZEN" cgroup using the checkpoint
> system call. Once in the "CHECKPOINTING" state, the cgroup may not leave until
> the checkpoint system call is finished and ready to return. Then the
> freezer state returns to "FROZEN". Writing any new state to freezer.state while
> checkpointing will return EBUSY. These semantics ensure that userspace cannot
> unfreeze the cgroup midway through the checkpoint system call.
> 
> The cgroup_freezer_begin_checkpoint() and cgroup_freezer_end_checkpoint()
> make relatively few assumptions about the task that is passed in. However the
> way they are called in do_checkpoint() assumes that the root of the container
> is in the same freezer cgroup as all the other tasks that will be
> checkpointed.
> 
> Matt Helsley's wrote the original patch.
> 
> Changlog:
>   [2009-Jun-03] change cgroup_freezer_{begin,end}_checkpoint() to take a
>   		struct cgroup_subsys_state pointer
> 		add struct cgroup_subsys_state *get_task_cgroup_freezer()
> 
> Signed-off-by: Oren Laadan <orenl at cs.columbia.edu>
> Cc: Matt Helsley <matthltc at us.ibm.com>
> Cc: Paul Menage <menage at google.com>
> Cc: Li Zefan <lizf at cn.fujitsu.com>
> Cc: Cedric Le Goater <legoater at free.fr>
> 
> Notes:
>         As a side-effect this prevents the multiple tasks from entering the
>                 CHECKPOINTING state simultaneously. All but one will get -EBUSY.
> ---
>  Documentation/cgroups/freezer-subsystem.txt |   10 ++
>  include/linux/freezer.h                     |   10 ++
>  kernel/cgroup_freezer.c                     |  149 +++++++++++++++++++--------
>  3 files changed, 127 insertions(+), 42 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/cgroups/freezer-subsystem.txt b/Documentation/cgroups/freezer-subsystem.txt
> index 41f37fe..92b68e6 100644
> --- a/Documentation/cgroups/freezer-subsystem.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/cgroups/freezer-subsystem.txt
> @@ -100,3 +100,13 @@ things happens:
>  		and returns EINVAL)
>  	3) The tasks that blocked the cgroup from entering the "FROZEN"
>  		state disappear from the cgroup's set of tasks.
> +
> +When the cgroup freezer is used to guard container checkpoint operations the
> +freezer.state may be "CHECKPOINTING". "CHECKPOINTING" can only be set on a
> +"FROZEN" cgroup using the checkpoint system call. Once in the "CHECKPOINTING"
> +state, the cgroup may not leave until the checkpoint system call returns the
> +freezer state to "FROZEN". Writing any new state to freezer.state while
> +checkpointing will return EBUSY. These semantics ensure that userspace cannot
> +unfreeze the cgroup midway through the checkpoint system call. Note that,
> +unlike "FROZEN" and "FREEZING", there is no corresponding "CHECKPOINTED"
> +state.
> diff --git a/include/linux/freezer.h b/include/linux/freezer.h
> index da7e52b..1402911 100644
> --- a/include/linux/freezer.h
> +++ b/include/linux/freezer.h
> @@ -64,12 +64,22 @@ extern bool freeze_task(struct task_struct *p, bool sig_only);
>  extern void cancel_freezing(struct task_struct *p);
> 
>  #ifdef CONFIG_CGROUP_FREEZER
> +struct cgroup_subsys_state;
>  extern int cgroup_freezing_or_frozen(struct task_struct *task);
> +extern struct cgroup_subsys_state *get_task_cgroup_freezer(struct task_struct *task);
> +extern int cgroup_freezer_begin_checkpoint(struct cgroup_subsys_state *css);
> +extern void cgroup_freezer_end_checkpoint(struct cgroup_subsys_state *css);
>  #else /* !CONFIG_CGROUP_FREEZER */
>  static inline int cgroup_freezing_or_frozen(struct task_struct *task)
>  {
>  	return 0;
>  }
> +static inline int cgroup_freezer_begin_checkpoint(struct task_struct *task)
> +{
> +	return -ENOTSUPP;
> +}
> +static inline void cgroup_freezer_end_checkpoint(struct task_struct *task)
> +{}

With CONFIG_CHECKPOINT depending on CONFIG_FREEZER I don't see why these
empty definitions are needed. Maybe it's just too late in the evening...

>  #endif /* !CONFIG_CGROUP_FREEZER */
> 
>  /*
> diff --git a/kernel/cgroup_freezer.c b/kernel/cgroup_freezer.c
> index 05795b7..4790fb9 100644
> --- a/kernel/cgroup_freezer.c
> +++ b/kernel/cgroup_freezer.c
> @@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ enum freezer_state {
>  	CGROUP_THAWED = 0,
>  	CGROUP_FREEZING,
>  	CGROUP_FROZEN,
> +	CGROUP_CHECKPOINTING,
>  };
> 
>  struct freezer {
> @@ -47,6 +48,18 @@ static inline struct freezer *task_freezer(struct task_struct *task)
>  			    struct freezer, css);
>  }
> 
> +struct cgroup_subsys_state *get_task_cgroup_freezer(struct task_struct *task)
> +{
> +	struct cgroup_subsys_state *css;
> +
> +	task_lock(task);
> +	css = task_subsys_state(task, freezer_subsys_id);
> +	css_get(css); /* make sure freezer doesn't go away */
> +	task_unlock(task);
> +
> +	return css;
> +}

Seems like there should be a better way to do this than grabbing
this reference. I'd prefer to just introduce:

int in_same_cgroup_freezer(struct task_struct *task1, 
				struct task_struct *task2);

In the external checkpoint case the root task is frozen and hence cannot
change cgroups.

Regardless of that reference, I think the interaction between
sys_checkpoint() and the cgroup freezer as we have it right now is broken
in the self-checkpoint case. It doesn't work because the freezer allows a
task to freeze itself. So if it does simply:

echo FROZEN > /my/cgroup/freezer.state

then it will never reach sys_checkpoint. If it moves itself to a different
cgroup to avoid this then we need a new way to determine which cgroup to
move from FROZEN to CHECKPOINTING.

Alternatively, we can populate each group with a new freezer file besides
freezer.state. Depending on what seems best it could record which task(s)
to not freeze (ugh). Or it could be a flags file indicating that if the
task writing FROZEN to freezer.state belongs to this cgroup then it
shouldn't be frozen.

I think removing the ability to freeze oneself may not be a desirable
change to other users of the freezer interface. It also wouldn't be
backward-compatible.

Cheers,
	-Matt Helsley
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