Thread (15 messages) 15 messages, 2 authors, 2025-09-14

Re: [PATCH 0/5] platform/chrome: Fix a race when probing drivers

From: Dmitry Torokhov <dmitry.torokhov@gmail.com>
Date: 2025-09-14 01:08:52
Also in: chrome-platform

On Fri, Sep 05, 2025 at 08:38:10AM +0000, Tzung-Bi Shih wrote:
On Thu, Sep 04, 2025 at 07:06:23AM -0700, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
quoted
On Tue, Sep 02, 2025 at 09:18:47PM +0800, Tzung-Bi Shih wrote:
quoted
On Fri, Aug 29, 2025 at 08:50:01PM +0800, Tzung-Bi Shih wrote:
quoted
On Fri, Aug 29, 2025 at 11:28:55AM +0000, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
quoted
On Thu, Aug 28, 2025 at 08:35:56AM +0000, Tzung-Bi Shih wrote:
quoted
A race is observed when cros_ec_lpc and cros-ec-keyb are all built as
modules.  cros_ec_lpc is cros-ec-keyb's parent.  However, they can be
probed at the same time.

Example:

+ -----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Some init process (e.g. udevd) | deferred_probe_work_func worker |
+ -----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Probe cros-ec-keyb.            |                                 |
| - Decide to defer[1].          |                                 |
|                                | A device bound to a driver[2].  |
| Probe cros_ec_lpc.             |                                 |
| - Init the struct[3].          |                                 |
|                                | Retry cros-ec-keyb from the     |
|                                | deferred list[4].               |
|                                | - Won't defer again as [3].     |
|                                | - Access uninitialized data in  |
|                                |   the struct.                   |
| - Register the device.         |                                 |
+ -----------------------------------------------------------------+

[1] https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.16/source/drivers/input/keyboard/cros_ec_keyb.c#L707
[2] https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.16/source/drivers/base/dd.c#L405
[3] https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.16/source/drivers/platform/chrome/cros_ec_lpc.c#L644
[4] https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.16/source/drivers/base/dd.c#L418

Note that the device link[5] can't help as in the observed environment,
the devices are already added via device_add()[6].

[5] https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/driver-api/device_link.html#usage
[6] https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.16/source/drivers/acpi/acpi_platform.c#L177

The series fixes the issue by ensuring the struct is ready for accessing
before continuing to probe cros-ec-keyb.
Why is the keyboard platform device instantiated before the transport
(cros_ec_lpc) is done initializing? I think this is the root of the
issue...
I may misunderstand but it seems to me:

- The ACPI bus enumerated and instantiated the platform devices[6] first.

- The keyboard platform device was probed when `cros_ec_keyb_driver`
  registered.  It deferred as its parent's drvdata was NULL[1].

- The transport platform device was probed when `cros_ec_lpc_driver`
  registered.  It set the drvdata[3].

- The keyboard platform device was probed again from retrying the deferred
  list, by another thread `deferred_probe_work_func`.  The parent's drvdata
  wasn't NULL and cros_ec_register() for the transport device weren't
  finished.  The race happened.
Hi Dmitry,

Does it make sense to you?
I'll have to research how MFD mixes up statically described and
DT-described platform devices and makes sure that children are not
probed before the parent is ready - I think we need to make cros_ec
behave the same way.
I may misunderstand but FWIW:

I failed to find relevant code in MFD [7] that guarantees the probe order.
Also, I'm curious about wouldn't code at [7] results in duplicate platform
devices?  E.g., 1 populated from OF; 1 created by MFD.

Note: current cros_ec_dev.c doesn't use `of_compatible` in struct mfd_cell.

If we're looking at how cros_ec_dev.c guarantees the order:

- The transport platfrom device is probed first.  It calls cros_ec_register().
- In cros_ec_register(), it registers the MFD device "cros-ec-dev".  And the
  children devices are added via mfd_add_devices().


Back to the issue we observed:

- The platform devices are created when it scans the tree in ACPI[6].  We
  probably have no way to prevent the devices from adding unless specifying
  `enumeration_by_parent`[8].

- When some of them are modules, the driver registrations are tied to the
  module insertion.  They can be arrived by anytime unless we use something
  similar to soft dependency[9].  A Kconfig dependency will also
  be needed to prevent cros_ec_lpcs=m but cros_ec_keyb=y.  However,
  cros_ec_keyb would need to specify 2 possible dependencies "cros_ec_lpcs"
  and "cros_ec_spi"[10].  I'm not sure what would be happening if a system
  has no cros_ec_spi module at all.
Sorry for the delay. I think we need to figure out how to delay device
registration until after the transport device is registered and probed.
Unfortunately I have not had time to look at this properly so I acked
the changes to cros_ec_keyb so that we can close the hole for now and
later we can try to see if there is a reasonable better solution.

Thanks.

-- 
Dmitry
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