Not all architectures implement futex_atomic_cmpxchg_inatomic(). The default
implementation returns -ENOSYS, which is currently not handled inside of the
futex guts.
Futex PI calls and robust list exits with a held futex result in an endless
loop in the futex code on architectures which have no support.
Fixing up every place where futex_atomic_cmpxchg_inatomic() is called would
add a fair amount of extra if/else constructs to the already complex code. It
is also not possible to disable the robust feature before user space tries to
register robust lists.
Compile time disabling is not a good idea either, as there are already
architectures with runtime detection of futex_atomic_cmpxchg_inatomic support.
Detect the functionality at runtime instead by calling
cmpxchg_futex_value_locked() with a NULL pointer from the futex initialization
code. This is guaranteed to fail, but the call of
futex_atomic_cmpxchg_inatomic() happens with pagefaults disabled.
On architectures, which use the asm-generic implementation or have a runtime
CPU feature detection, a -ENOSYS return value disables the PI/robust features.
On architectures with a working implementation the call returns -EFAULT and
the PI/robust features are enabled.
The relevant syscalls return -ENOSYS and the robust list exit code is blocked,
when the detection fails.
Fixes http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/2/11/149
Originally reported by: Lennart Buytenhek
projects / linux-2.6 / commit