libxl: ocaml: drop the ocaml heap lock before calling into libxl

libxl: ocaml: drop the ocaml heap lock before calling into libxl

Ocaml has a heap lock which must be held whenever ocaml code is running. Ocaml
usually drops this lock when it enters a potentially blocking low-level
function, such as writing to a file. Libxl has its own lock, which it may
acquire when being called.

Things get interesting when libxl calls back into ocaml code. There is a risk
of ending up in a deadlock when a thread holds both locks at the same time,
then temporarily drop the ocaml lock, while another thread calls another libxl
function.

To avoid deadlocks, we drop the ocaml heap lock before entering libxl, and
reacquire it in callbacks to ocaml. This way, the ocaml heap lock is never held
together with the libxl lock, except in osevent registration callbacks, and
xentoollog callbacks. If we guarantee to not call any libxl functions inside
those callbacks, we can avoid deadlocks.

This patch handle the dropping and reacquiring of the ocaml heap lock by the
caml_enter_blocking_section and caml_leave_blocking_section functions, and
related macros. We are also careful to not call any functions that access the
ocaml heap while the ocaml heap lock is dropped. This often involves copying
ocaml values to C before dropping the ocaml lock.

The ao_how in aohow_val is now malloc'ed, just to make this function a little
easier to use.

Signed-off-by: Rob Hoes <rob.hoes@citrix.com>
Acked-by: David Scott <dave.scott@eu.citrix.com>
Acked-by: Ian Campbell <ian.campbell@citrix.com>