Re: [PATCH v5 07/36] lockdep: Annotate lockdep assertions for context analysis

On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 at 21:54, 'Bart Van Assche' via kasan-dev
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On 12/19/25 7:39 AM, Marco Elver wrote:
> > diff --git a/include/linux/lockdep.h b/include/linux/lockdep.h
> > index dd634103b014..621566345406 100644
> > --- a/include/linux/lockdep.h
> > +++ b/include/linux/lockdep.h
> > @@ -282,16 +282,16 @@ extern void lock_unpin_lock(struct lockdep_map *lock, struct pin_cookie);
> >       do { WARN_ON_ONCE(debug_locks && !(cond)); } while (0)
> >
> >   #define lockdep_assert_held(l)              \
> > -     lockdep_assert(lockdep_is_held(l) != LOCK_STATE_NOT_HELD)
> > +     do { lockdep_assert(lockdep_is_held(l) != LOCK_STATE_NOT_HELD); __assume_ctx_lock(l); } while (0)
> >
> >   #define lockdep_assert_not_held(l)  \
> >       lockdep_assert(lockdep_is_held(l) != LOCK_STATE_HELD)
> >
> >   #define lockdep_assert_held_write(l)        \
> > -     lockdep_assert(lockdep_is_held_type(l, 0))
> > +     do { lockdep_assert(lockdep_is_held_type(l, 0)); __assume_ctx_lock(l); } while (0)
> >
> >   #define lockdep_assert_held_read(l) \
> > -     lockdep_assert(lockdep_is_held_type(l, 1))
> > +     do { lockdep_assert(lockdep_is_held_type(l, 1)); __assume_shared_ctx_lock(l); } while (0)
> >
> >   #define lockdep_assert_held_once(l)         \
> >       lockdep_assert_once(lockdep_is_held(l) != LOCK_STATE_NOT_HELD)
> > @@ -389,10 +389,10 @@ extern int lockdep_is_held(const void *);
> >   #define lockdep_assert(c)                   do { } while (0)
> >   #define lockdep_assert_once(c)                      do { } while (0)
> >
> > -#define lockdep_assert_held(l)                       do { (void)(l); } while (0)
> > +#define lockdep_assert_held(l)                       __assume_ctx_lock(l)
> >   #define lockdep_assert_not_held(l)          do { (void)(l); } while (0)
> > -#define lockdep_assert_held_write(l)         do { (void)(l); } while (0)
> > -#define lockdep_assert_held_read(l)          do { (void)(l); } while (0)
> > +#define lockdep_assert_held_write(l)         __assume_ctx_lock(l)
> > +#define lockdep_assert_held_read(l)          __assume_shared_ctx_lock(l)
> >   #define lockdep_assert_held_once(l)         do { (void)(l); } while (0)
> >   #define lockdep_assert_none_held_once()     do { } while (0)
>
> I think these macros should use __must_hold() instead of __assume...().
> lockdep_assert_held() emits a runtime warning if 'l' is not held. Hence,
> I think that code where lockdep_assert_held() is used should not compile
> if it cannot be verified at compile time that 'l' is held.

That's not the purpose of this - if a function or variable should have
a lock held, we mark them explicitly with __must_hold() or
__guarded_by(), and we don't really need to use lockdep_assert,
because the compiler helped us out. In an ideal world, every function
or variable that requires a lock held is annotated, and we don't need
to ever worry about explicitly checking if a lock is held (but we'll
be far from that for a while).

The purpose is described in the commit message:

> Presence of these annotations causes the analysis to assume the context
> lock is held after calls to the annotated function, and avoid false
> positives with complex control-flow; [...]

It's basically an escape hatch to defer to dynamic analysis where the
limits of the static analysis are reached. This is also the original
purpose of the "assert"/"assume" attributes:
https://clang.llvm.org/docs/ThreadSafetyAnalysis.html#assert-capability-and-assert-shared-capability

Without this escape hatch, and deferral to dynamic analysis, we'd be
stuck in some cases.