False positive due to incorrect instrumentation

[GoogleCodeExporter]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Christian Holler
Date: Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 3:35 AM
Subject: Problem with cmov/wrong instrumented code?
To: thread-sanitizer@googlegroups.com

Hi,

it would be really nice if some TSan developers could take a look at
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=939788 . In particular
comment 14 suggests that there could be a bug in the way TSan generates
it's instrumented code. Basically we're checking if we are the main
thread with a function called NS_IsMainThread() and then read a value if
that is true. However, with TSan, we always seem to read the value
(unconditionally), leading to a race report.

It would be nice if someone could figure out what exactly is going wrong
there and how we (or you) can fix it.

Thanks,

Chris

Original issue reported on code.google.com by dvyu...@google.com on 19 Nov 2013 at 3:10

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi,

Thanks for the report!
What compilation options/optimization level do you use?

Original comment by dvyu...@google.com on 19 Nov 2013 at 3:16

[GoogleCodeExporter]

If I understand the situation correctly, here is what's going on: 

% cat if.cc 
int x;
int foo(int cond) {
  if (cond)
    return x;
  return 0;
}

%  clang -O1  if.cc -S -o - -emit-llvm
; Function Attrs: nounwind readonly uwtable
define i32 @_Z3fooi(i32 %cond) #0 {
entry:
  %tobool = icmp eq i32 %cond, 0
  %0 = load i32* @x, align 4, !tbaa !1
  %retval.0 = select i1 %tobool, i32 0, i32 %0
  ret i32 %retval.0
}

LLVM at O1 and higher hoists a safe load (from a global) out of the conditional 
basic block.
This optimization is clearly hostile to tsan. 

Original comment by konstant...@gmail.com on 19 Nov 2013 at 4:34

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Kostya, you are in much better position to resolve this. Can we disable that 
optimization under tsan?

Original comment by dvyu...@google.com on 19 Nov 2013 at 5:00

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Sure, that's what we are going to do. 

choller@, fixing this properly may take some time (there is a ongoing 
discussion at LLVM about better ways to do similar stuff: 
http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvm-commits/Week-of-Mon-20131118/195757.html
)
In the meantime, can you try __attribute__((no_sanitize_thread)) on that 
function?

Original comment by konstant...@gmail.com on 19 Nov 2013 at 5:10

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Just FTR, here is a full reproducer with a false positive: 
% cat if-race.cc 
#include <pthread.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int g;
int foo(int cond) {
  if (cond)
    return g;
  return 0;
}
void *Thread1(void *p) {
  long res = foo((long)p);
  sleep(1);
  return (void*) res;
}

int main() {
  pthread_t t;
  pthread_create(&t, 0, Thread1, 0);
  g = 1;
  pthread_join(t, 0);
}
% clang -fsanitize=thread  if-race.cc   && ./a.out 
% clang -fsanitize=thread  if-race.cc -O1  && ./a.out 
==================
WARNING: ThreadSanitizer: data race (pid=24069)
  Read of size 4 at 0x7f834514ada8 by thread T1:
    #0 foo(int) ??:0 (exe+0x0000000867de)
    #1 Thread1(void*) ??:0 (exe+0x000000086814)

Original comment by konstant...@gmail.com on 19 Nov 2013 at 5:43

[GoogleCodeExporter]

One possible fix (will send it for review a bit later): 

Index: lib/Analysis/ValueTracking.cpp
===================================================================
--- lib/Analysis/ValueTracking.cpp      (revision 195222)
+++ lib/Analysis/ValueTracking.cpp      (working copy)
@@ -2008,6 +2008,9 @@
     const LoadInst *LI = cast<LoadInst>(Inst);
     if (!LI->isUnordered())
       return false;
+    // Speculating a load may create a race that did not exist in the source.
+    if 
(LI->getParent()->getParent()->hasFnAttribute(Attribute::SanitizeThread))
+      return false;
     return LI->getPointerOperand()->isDereferenceablePointer();
   }
   case Instruction::Call: {

Original comment by konstant...@gmail.com on 20 Nov 2013 at 8:12

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Should be fixed by http://llvm.org/viewvc/llvm-project?rev=195324&view=rev
choller@, please try. 

Original comment by konstant...@gmail.com on 21 Nov 2013 at 7:40

• Changed state: Fixed

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I've applied the patch to r192787 (I think that's the last good rev right now 
for Firefox) and it seems to have fixed the problem, thanks.

Original comment by decoder...@googlemail.com on 21 Nov 2013 at 9:18

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Turns out there is a whole paper about this kind of compiler bugs. 
http://www.di.ens.fr/~zappa/readings/pldi13.pdf

Original comment by konstant...@gmail.com on 27 Nov 2013 at 8:09

[GoogleCodeExporter]

This issue is not a compiler bug per se. It is OK to read a global concurrently 
on x86.

Original comment by dvyu...@google.com on 27 Nov 2013 at 8:25

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yes. The paper is about similar situations which *are* bugs 
(e.g. thread-hostile store hoisting).
But the same technique could be used to find tsan-hostile optimizations that 
are otherwise correct. 
Robin Morisset (one of the authors) told me that they've seen a few of those 
cases
which were false positives for them. 

Original comment by konstant...@gmail.com on 27 Nov 2013 at 8:28

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Adding Project:ThreadSanitizer as part of GitHub migration.

Original comment by gli...@google.com on 30 Jul 2015 at 9:21

• Added labels: ProjectThreadSanitizer