RE: [PATCH] eal: add worker threads cleanup in rte_eal_cleanup()

[Gagandeep Singh <G.Singh@nxp.com>]

Hi,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stephen Hemminger <stephen@networkplumber.org>
> Sent: Friday, January 10, 2025 10:49 PM
> To: Gagandeep Singh <G.Singh@nxp.com>
> Cc: dev@dpdk.org
> Subject: Re: [PATCH] eal: add worker threads cleanup in rte_eal_cleanup()
> 
> On Fri, 10 Jan 2025 12:17:17 +0530
> Gagandeep Singh <g.singh@nxp.com> wrote:
> 
> > This patch introduces a worker thread cleanup function in the EAL
> > library, ensuring proper termination of created pthreads and
> > invocation of registered pthread destructors.
> > This guarantees the correct cleanup of thread-specific resources, used
> > by drivers or applications.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Gagandeep Singh <g.singh@nxp.com>
> > ---
> 
> What problem is this trying to solve?
> 
> Canceling threads sends signals and can be problematic.
> Many of the operations done in drivers are not signal safe.

To ensure the proper cleanup of thread-specific resources, the DPAA driver initializes pthread-specific destructors using pthread_key_create(). These destructors are executed only when a thread terminates or the key is deleted. However, since threads are not terminated when the application is killed, these destructors are not executed, resulting in resource leaks.
To address this issue, we propose adding thread termination code to rte_eal_cleanup() to ensure that threads are properly terminated, thereby triggering the execution of pthread-specific destructors

Any alternate suggestion in case pthread_cancel is not a better solution? We can add pthread join timeout to avoid blocking on thread stuck or
May be any way to call pthread_exit?