Am 11.11.2025 um 15:43 hat Daniel P. Berrangé geschrieben:
> On Wed, Nov 05, 2025 at 03:57:29PM -0600, Eric Blake wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 04, 2025 at 11:13:48AM +0000, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> > > On Mon, Nov 03, 2025 at 02:10:57PM -0600, Eric Blake wrote:
> > > > The point of QIONetListener is to allow a server to listen to more
> > > > than one socket address at a time, and respond to clients in a
> > > > first-come-first-serve order across any of those addresses.  While
> > > > some servers (like NBD) really do want to serve multiple simultaneous
> > > > clients, many other servers only care about the first client to
> > > > connect, and will immediately deregister the callback, possibly by
> > > > dropping their reference to the QIONetListener.  The existing code
> > > > ensures that all other pending callbacks remain safe once the first
> > > > callback drops the listener, by adding an extra reference to the
> > > > listener for each GSource created, where those references pair to the
> > > > eventual teardown of each GSource after a given callbacks has been
> > > > serviced or aborted.  But it is equally acceptable to hoist the
> > > > reference to the listener outside the loop - as long as there is a
> > > > callback function registered, it is sufficient to have a single
> > > > reference live for the entire array of sioc, rather than one reference
> > > > per sioc in the array.
> > > > 
> > > > Hoisting the reference like this will make it easier for an upcoming
> > > > patch to still ensure the listener cannot be prematurely garbage
> > > > collected during the user's callback, even when the callback no longer
> > > > uses a per-sioc GSource.
> > > 
> > > It isn't quite this simple. Glib reference counts the callback
> > > func / data, holding a reference when dispatching the callback.
> > > 
> > > IOW, even if the GSource is unrefed, the callback 'notify'
> > > function won't be called if the main loop is in the process
> > > of dispatching.
> > 
> > I'm not sure I follow your argument.  Glib holds a reference on the
> > GSource object, not on the opaque data that is handed to the GSource.
> > It is possible to use g_source_set_callback_indirect() where GSource
> > can learn how to use the same reference counting on data as external
> > code, by the use of function pointers for ref and unref, but QIO uses
> > merely g_source_set_callback().
> > https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/blob/main/glib/gmain.c#L1844
> > shows that glib then wraps that opaque pointer into an internal
> > GSourceCallback object which itself is reference counted, so that the
> > notify function is not called until the GSource is finalized, but that
> > is reference counting on the container, not on the opaque object
> > itself (which in this patch is the QIONetListener).
> > 
> > > 
> > > With this change, the reference on 'listener' can now be
> > > released even if the callback is currently dispatching.
> > 
> > So if I'm understanding your concern, you're worried that the unwatch
> > code can finish looping through the g_source_destroy and then reach
> > the point where it unrefs listener, but that a late-breaking client
> > connection can trigger a callback that can still be executing in
> > another thread/coroutine after the listener is unref'ed but before the
> > GSource has been finalized?  If so, would squashing this in fix the
> > problem you are seeing?
> 
> Consider the following scenario, where we have two threads, one
> is calling QIONetListener APIs, and one is the event thread.
> 
> In the current code, when we unref() the GSource for the socket
> watch, the destroy-notify does not get called, because the
> event thread is in the middle of a dispatch callback for the
> I/O event.  When the dispatch callback returns control to the
> event loop, the GSourceCallback is unrefed, and this triggers
> the destroy-notify call, which unrefs the listener.
> 
> The flow looks like this:
> 
>   Thread 1:
>        qio_net_listener_set_client_func(lstnr, f, ...);
>            => foreach sock: socket
>                => object_ref(lstnr)
>                => sock_src = qio_channel_socket_add_watch_source(sock, ...., 
> lstnr, object_unref);
> 
>   Thread 2:
>        poll()
>           => event POLLIN on socket
>                => ref(GSourceCallback)
>                => call dispatch(sock)
>                     ...do stuff..
> 
>   Thread 1:
>        qio_net_listener_set_client_func(lstnr, NULL, ...);
>           => foreach sock: socket
>                => g_source_unref(sock_src)
>        unref(lstnr)  (the final reference)
>           => finalize(lstnr)
> 
>   Thread 2:
>               => return dispatch(sock)
>               => unref(GSourceCallback)
>                   => destroy-notify
>                      => object_unref
> 
> 
> 
> > diff --git i/io/net-listener.c w/io/net-listener.c
> > index 9f4e3c0be0c..1fcbbeb7a76 100644
> > --- i/io/net-listener.c
> > +++ w/io/net-listener.c
> > @@ -67,8 +67,10 @@ static void qio_net_listener_aio_func(void *opaque)
> >  {
> >      QIOChannelSocket *sioc = QIO_CHANNEL_SOCKET(opaque);
> > 
> > +    object_ref(OBJECT(sioc->listener));
> >      qio_net_listener_channel_func(QIO_CHANNEL(sioc), G_IO_IN,
> >                                    sioc->listener);
> > +    object_unref(OBJECT(sioc->listener));
> >  }
> 
> Now consider this patch, plus this extra hunk...
> 
>   Thread 1:
>        qio_net_listener_set_client_func(lstnr, f, ...);
>            => object_ref(listener)
>            => foreach sock: socket
>                => sock_src = qio_channel_socket_add_watch_source(sock, ...., 
> lstnr, NULL);
> 
>   Thread 2:
>        poll()
>           => event POLLIN on socket
>                => call dispatch(sock)
>                     => ref(lstnr)
>                     ...do stuff..
> 
>   Thread 1:
>        qio_net_listener_set_client_func(lstnr, NULL, ...);
>           => foreach sock: socket
>                => g_source_unref(sock_src)
>           => object_unref(listener)
>        unref(lstnr)  (still 1 reference left)
> 
>   Thread 2:
>                     => unref(lstnr)    (the final reference)
>                         => finalize(lstnr)
>               => return dispatch(sock)
>               => unref(GSourceCallback)
> 
> 
> That appears to work ok, however, there's still a race window that is
> not solved. Between the time thread 2 sees POLLIN, and when it calls
> the dispatch(sock) function, it is possible that thread 1 will drop
> the last reference:
> 
> 
> 
>   Thread 1:
>        qio_net_listener_set_client_func(lstnr, f, ...);
>            => object_ref(listener)
>            => foreach sock: socket
>                => sock_src = qio_channel_socket_add_watch_source(sock, ...., 
> lstnr, NULL);
> 
>   Thread 2:
>        poll()
>           => event POLLIN on socket
> 
>   Thread 1:
>        qio_net_listener_set_client_func(lstnr, NULL, ...);
>           => foreach sock: socket
>                => g_source_unref(sock_src)
>           => object_unref(listener)
>        unref(lstnr)  (still 1 reference left)

Is what you're worried about that there is still a reference left in
the opaque pointer of an fd handler, but it's not in the refcount and
therefore this already frees the listener while thread 2 will still
access it?

> 
>   Thread 2:
>                => call dispatch(sock)
>                     => ref(lstnr)
>                     ...do stuff..
>                     => unref(lstnr)    (the final reference)
>                         => finalize(lstnr)
>               => return dispatch(sock)
>               => unref(GSourceCallback)
> 
> 
> I don't see a way to solve this without synchronization with the event
> loop for releasing the reference on the opaque data for the dispatcher
> callback.  That's what the current code does, but I'm seeing no way for
> the AioContext event loop callbacks to have anything equivalent. This
> feels like a gap in the AioContext design.

I think the way you would normally do this is schedule a BH in thread 2
to do the critical work. If you delete the fd handler and unref the
listener in thread 2, then there is no race.

But maybe adding a callback for node deletion in AioHandler wouldn't
hurt because the opaque pointer pretty much always references something
and doing an unref when deleting the AioHandler should be a pretty
common pattern.

> This is admittedly an incredibly hard to trigger race condition. It would
> need a client to be calling a QMP command that tears down the NBD server,
> at the exact same time as a new NBD client was incoming. Or the same kind
> of scenario for other pieces of QEMU code using QIONetListener. This still
> makes me worried though, as rare races have a habit of hitting QEMU
> eventually.

Aren't both QMP and incoming NBD connections always handled in the main
thread? I'm not sure if I know a case where we would actually get this
pattern with two different threads today. Of course, that doesn't mean
that we couldn't get it in the future.

Kevin


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