Merge #972

972: channel: unbounded: synchronize receiver disconnect with initialization  r=taiki-e a=petrosagg

Receiver disconnection relies on the incorrect assumption that `head.index != tail.index` implies that the channel is initialized (i.e `head.block` and `tail.block` point to allocated blocks). However, it can happen that `head.index != tail.index` and `head.block == null` at the same time which leads to a segfault when a channel is dropped in that state.

This can happen because initialization is performed in two steps. First, the tail block is allocated and the `tail.block` is set. If that is successful `head.block` is set to the same pointer. Importantly, initialization is skipped if `tail.block` is not null.

Therefore we can have the following situation:

1. Thread A starts to send the first value of the channel, observes that `tail.block` is null and begins initialization. It sets `tail.block` to point to a newly allocated block and then gets preempted. `head.block` is still null at this point.
2. Thread B starts to send the second value of the channel, observes that `tail.block` *is not* null and proceeds with writing its value in the allocated tail block and sets `tail.index` to 1.
3. Thread B drops the receiver of the channel which observes that `head.index != tail.index` (0 and 1 respectively), therefore there must be messages to drop. It starts traversing the linked list from `head.block` which is still a null pointer, leading to a segfault.

The first commit of this PR includes a reproduction of this scenario.

This PR fixes this problem by waiting for initialization to complete when `head.index != tail.index` and the `head.block` is still null. A similar check exists in `start_recv` for similar reasons.

Fixes #971 

Co-authored-by: Petros Angelatos <[email protected]>

Author: bors[bot]

crossbeam-channel/src/flavors/list.rs

@@ -584,6 +584,17 @@ impl<T> Channel<T> {
         let mut head = self.head.index.load(Ordering::Acquire);
         let mut block = self.head.block.load(Ordering::Acquire);
 
+        // If we're going to be dropping messages we need to synchronize with initialization
+        if head >> SHIFT != tail >> SHIFT {
+            // The block can be null here only if a sender is in the process of initializing the
+            // channel while another sender managed to send a message by inserting it into the
+            // semi-initialized channel and advanced the tail.
+            // In that case, just wait until it gets initialized.
+            while block.is_null() {
+                backoff.snooze();
+                block = self.head.block.load(Ordering::Acquire);
+            }
+        }
         unsafe {
             // Drop all messages between head and tail and deallocate the heap-allocated blocks.
             while head >> SHIFT != tail >> SHIFT {