Re: [PATCH] synchronize_irq needs a barrier

On Fri, 2007-10-19 at 12:48 +0800, Herbert Xu wrote:

[IRQ]: Fix synchronize_irq races with IRQ handler

As it is some callers of synchronize_irq rely on memory barriers
to provide synchronisation against the IRQ handlers.  For example,
the tg3 driver does

	tp->irq_sync = 1;
	smp_mb();
	synchronize_irq();

and then in the IRQ handler:

	if (!tp->irq_sync)
		netif_rx_schedule(dev, &tp->napi);

Unfortunately memory barriers only work well when they come in
pairs.  Because we don't actually have memory barriers on the
IRQ path, the memory barrier before the synchronize_irq() doesn't
actually protect us.

In particular, synchronize_irq() may return followed by the
result of netif_rx_schedule being made visible.

This patch (mostly written by Linus) fixes this by using spin
locks instead of memory barries on the synchronize_irq() path.

Signed-off-by: Herbert Xu <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au>

Good for me.

Acked-by: Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org>

Cheers,
Ben.