[lldb-dev] gdb-remote lldb prompt race condition

Matthew Gardiner mg11 at csr.com
Thu Aug 21 22:26:49 PDT 2014


Yes, unfortunately, the prompt issue rears it's head in several places. 
That's why it seems clear that at least some extension to the current 
design is required. I'm also wondering whether Shawn's SyncIOHandler can 
be applied to this one. Regarding "spare cycles", I'm about to launch 
into a big investigation for kalimba on lldb - since we have some 
variants where bytes (minimum addressable units) aren't 8-bits, so I can 
do little more than the odd piece of analysis, and linux patch 
testing... :-(

Matt


Todd Fiala wrote:
> >  I'm wondering whether whether we need some brave soul, to redesign 
> the current lldb IO handling mechanisms.
>
> I'm not sure about the "brave soul" part, but my team may look to take 
> this on.  We're getting hammered by it in several different contexts 
> (i.e. the idea that races here seem to require several one-off fixes 
> to get the handling right).  When we get a few cycles on it we may try 
> to hash out something coherent and propose it here.  (If somebody 
> beats us to it, have at it).
>
> I'm blocked by I think a related issue here, so I may get to this 
> sooner than later.
>
> -Todd
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 12:27 AM, Matthew Gardiner <mg11 at csr.com 
> <mailto:mg11 at csr.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Greg,
>
>     If that is the case, then the main thread (i.e. the one running
>     Debugger::ExecuteIOHandler) needs to be blocked until the event
>     arrives.
>
>     Why?
>
>     Because with the existing design once the user has entered their
>     "gdb-remote" command, and completed the connect call, the main
>     thread goes back to the IOHandlerEditline::Run() loop, sees that
>     IsActive() is true, prints the next prompt, etc.. When I debugged
>     this I didn't see any call to Deactivate or SetIsDone, which would
>     have made IsActive return false. (And then the async
>     DefaultEventHandler awakes and it's output "Process 1 stopped"
>     splats over the prompt).
>
>     If the code is changed so that the edit line IOHandler's IsActive
>     returns false, while an asynchronous event is happening, then I
>     think that the main thread would spin, since the reader_sp->Run()
>     function below:
>
>     void
>     Debugger::ExecuteIOHanders()
>     {
>         while (1)
>         {
>             IOHandlerSP reader_sp(m_input_reader_stack.Top());
>             if (!reader_sp)
>                 break;
>
>             reader_sp->Activate();
>             reader_sp->Run();
>             reader_sp->Deactivate();
>
>     would immediately return. That's why I'm thinking the main thread
>     probably should block until the last issued command has completed.
>
>     Out of interest, I did research your "If someone is grabbing the
>     event manually by hijacking events" point. But when stopped state
>     is detected (i.e. the reply to ?) in GDBRemote and
>     Broadcaster::PrivateBroadcastEvent is called, there is no
>     hijacking_listener. Indeed the execution path is that as indicated
>     by the -->
>
>         if (hijacking_listener)
>         {
>             if (unique &&
>     hijacking_listener->PeekAtNextEventForBroadcasterWithType (this,
>     event_type))
>                 return;
>             hijacking_listener->AddEvent (event_sp);
>         }
>         else
>         {
>             collection::iterator pos, end = m_listeners.end();
>             // Iterate through all listener/mask pairs
>             for (pos = m_listeners.begin(); pos != end; ++pos)
>             {
>                 // If the listener's mask matches any bits that we
>     just set, then
>                 // put the new event on its event queue.
>                 if (event_type & pos->second)
>                 {
>                     if (unique &&
>     pos->first->PeekAtNextEventForBroadcasterWithType (this, event_type))
>                         continue;
>     ---->         pos->first->AddEvent (event_sp);
>
>     So my contention is that in the case of gdb-connect the initial
>     stop state should either be delivered/printed sychronously in the
>     Process::ConnectRemote (i.e. in the mainthread context) or that
>     the main thread should block until either the event arrives, or
>     for some other reason the command last issued by the user is
>     deemed to be "complete".
>
>     thanks
>     Matt
>
>
>
>     Greg Clayton wrote:
>
>         The event should get delivered to the Debugger thread that is
>         waiting for events and it should coordinate with the top io
>         handler when printing it. If someone is grabbing the event
>         manually by hijacking events, then we need to fix that code to
>         send the event on to the unhijacked main event loop.
>
>
>             On Aug 20, 2014, at 1:42 AM, Matthew Gardiner
>             <mg11 at csr.com <mailto:mg11 at csr.com>> wrote:
>
>             Hi folks
>
>             I have been seeing another issue with the display of the
>             lldb prompt. This time it's when I do "target create
>             elf-file", then "gdb-remote port-number". After the
>             "gdb-remote" command I see the fact that my process is
>             stopped, e.g.
>
>             Process 1 stopped
>
>             on the screen. But no (lldb) prompt.
>
>             Some investigation revealed that what's *probably*
>             happening is the main thread after processing the
>             "gdb-remote" returns to it's IOHandler, which then prints
>             (lldb). However, the inferior's state changes seem to
>             delivered to stdout via a different thread, basically one
>             which sits in Debugger::DefaultEventHandler. This
>             subsequent output then, I think, overwrites the previous
>             (lldb) prompt.
>
>             Now in my (and presumably other people's) situation, this
>             issue is compounded by the speed of the TCP/IP connection
>             to the gdbserver stub, the "poll the hardware" nature of
>             my stub, and the fact the hardware is actually simulated -
>             yes over a TCP/IP socket.
>
>             FWIW, I resolved this by a horrible (POSIX only) hack, of
>             sleeping for 300ms at the bottom of the
>             CommandInterpreter::HandleCommand function.
>
>             @@ -9,6 +9,8 @@
>
>             #include "lldb/lldb-python.h"
>
>             +#include <poll.h> // MG for prompt bugs
>             +
>             #include <string>
>             #include <vector>
>             #include <stdlib.h>
>             @@ -1916,6 +1918,9 @@
>                  if (log)
>                    log->Printf ("HandleCommand, command %s",
>             (result.Succeeded() ? "succeeded" : "did not succeed"));
>
>             +    // MG wait for remote connects etc. to complete
>             +    poll(0,0,300);
>             +
>                  return result.Succeeded();
>             }
>
>
>             But this is horrid. Given this, and other prompt issues,
>             I'm wondering whether whether we need some brave soul, to
>             redesign the current lldb IO handling mechanisms.
>
>             Matt
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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> -- 
> Todd Fiala | 	 Software Engineer | 	tfiala at google.com 
> <mailto:tfiala at google.com> | 	650-943-3180
>
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