Thread (9 messages) 9 messages, 3 authors, 2012-05-11

[RFC 1/1] Driver Core: don't oops with unregistered driver in driver_find_device()

From: gregkh@linuxfoundation.org (Greg Kroah-Hartman)
Date: 2012-05-10 22:46:05
Also in: linux-tegra, lkml

On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 04:34:40PM -0600, Stephen Warren wrote:
On 05/10/2012 04:28 PM, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
quoted
On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 02:00:48PM -0600, Stephen Warren wrote:
quoted
On 05/10/2012 12:16 PM, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
quoted
On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 09:59:15AM -0600, Stephen Warren wrote:
quoted
On 05/10/2012 08:11 AM, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
quoted
On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 10:35:02AM +0300, Hiroshi DOYU wrote:
quoted
driver_find_device() can be called with an unregistered driver.
Who does that?  Where in the kernel?  Why would you try to do that?
quoted
Need to check driver_private to see if it's populated or not,
especially under deferrable probe.
Hm, I don't know if this will really catch a driver that was registered
and then was unregistered, right?  It seems like moving the real problem
somewhere else, why not fix the original issue instead?
quoted
Signed-off-by: Hiroshi DOYU <redacted>
---
In [PATCHv5 2/3] ARM: tegra: Add SMMU enabler in AHB:
  http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.ports.tegra/4658

"tegra_ahb_driver" may not be populated when it's called.
It can?  I don't see that in that patch.
I think this is what's happening:

The Tegra SMMU driver is registered using subsys_initcall().

The Tegra AHB driver is registered using module_platform_driver, so
module_init().

The device objects for both are registered at basically the same time
during the machine's initialization call, which I think happens before
both or some of the above two calls.

So, SMMU ends up getting probed before the AHB driver has even been
registered.
What do those two drivers have to do with each other?
The AHB HW module contains a bit to say "enable the SMMU". This bit
cannot be turned on until certain initialization has been performed by
the SMMU driver.

So, SMMU's probe performs the initialization, then attempts to contact
the AHB driver to ask it to enable the SMMU.
quoted
quoted
That's why in patch Hiroshi linked, in tegra_ahb_enable_smmu(), the AHB
driver hasn't (or may not have) been registered, so driver_find_device()
can experience the issue this patch attempts to solve.
It sounds like you have a locking or ordering problem somewhere in this
platform, and it needs to be resolved there.  Odds are, this tiny check
is the least of your worries, right?

Who is doing the driver_find_device() call in the first place?  The
driver core?  Or something else?
SMMU's probe calls tegra_ahb_enable_smmu().

tegra_ahb_enable_smmu() needs to find the AHB's struct device so that it
can find get the driver data associated with it, which contains the
ioremap'd registers amongst other things.

In order to find the correct device, tegra_ahb_enable_smmu() is passed
the device tree node of the appropriate AHB that controls the SMMU.

The two drivers use deferred probe to ensure that their relative probe
order doesn't matter. If AHB is probed first, then
tegra_ahb_enable_smmu()'s driver_find_device() succeeds, and the AHB
register is programmed to enable the SMMU. If the SMMU is probed first,
then tegra_ahb_enable_smmu() returns -EPROBE_DEFER to hold off the SMMU
from completing its probe. I believe this is exactly the kind of thing
-EPROBE_DEFER was intended for.
Ok, thanks for explaining it better, that would have been nice to have
in the original patch submission :)

This fix, is it needed for 3.4, or just 3.5?
The SMMU driver that needs this will be added in 3.6 (so putting this
patch in 3.5 would be good to simplify dependencies). It's not needed in
3.4.
Ok, good to know.
quoted
I kind of don't like relying on ->p as a check to see if things are set
up properly, I wonder if we could use the kobject state_initalized field
instead somehow, or maybe state_in_sysfs?  Oh wait, that's in ->p as
well.  Ok, I guess this is as good as it can get.
In the case you mentioned of the driver getting unregistered, can the
unregister code clear ->p?
I do not know.  Try it in the bus_remove_driver() call after the
kobject_put() line, that might do it, but it might cause problems, I
can't remember at the moment.  It would need a lot of testing

thanks,

greg k-h
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