On Wed, Jan 06, 2010 at 09:10:07AM -0800, Stephen Hemminger wrote:

On Wed, 6 Jan 2010 08:40:27 -0800
"Paul E. McKenney" [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

quoted

-	if (inet->mc_list == NULL)
+	rcu_read_lock();
+	if (rcu_dereference(inet->mc_list) == NULL) {
+		rcu_read_unlock();
 		return;
+	}
+	rcu_read_unlock();  

I don't understand what rcu_read_lock() is protecting here.  The
test is still unstable -- just after finding inet->mc_list non-NULL,
ip_mc_leave_group() might cause it to become NULL.

Is there a need to protect sock_net(sk)?  (I don't believe so, but then
again, I don't claim to understand locking in Linux networking.)
If there is no need, it should be possible to drop the rcu_read_lock(),
rcu_read_unlock(), and rcu_dereference() above.  (You might want them
for documentation purposes, as they aren't hurting anything, just
wondering what the intent is.)

I think code is trying to avoid looking at mc_list if no multicast
addresses. But it is an unsafe check.

Fair enough!  Might be worth a comment saying that the rcu_read_lock(),
rcu_read_unlock()s, and rcu_dereference() are just for show.

If mc_list was just converted to list_head this would all be clearer

Agreed!  ;-)

							Thanx, Paul