Re: [net,v2,2/2] net: liquidio: Initialize netdev pointer before queue setup

On Mon, Jan 26, 2026 at 03:52:52PM +0000, Simon Horman wrote:

On Mon, Jan 26, 2026 at 03:49:41PM +0000, Simon Horman wrote:

quoted

This is an AI-generated review of your patch. The human sending this
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For local reproduction steps see https://netdev-ai.bots.linux.dev/ai-local.html
---
net: liquidio: Initialize netdev pointer before queue setup

This patch moves the initialization of lio and props structures earlier
in setup_nic_devices() so that props->netdev is set before calling
netif_set_real_num_rx_queues() and netif_set_real_num_tx_queues(). The
intent is to fix a memory leak where the allocated netdev would not be
freed if queue setup fails.

quoted

diff --git a/drivers/net/ethernet/cavium/liquidio/lio_main.c b/drivers/net/ethernet/cavium/liquidio/lio_main.c
index 3ba2806f5d1e..2383f0173a54 100644
--- a/drivers/net/ethernet/cavium/liquidio/lio_main.c
+++ b/drivers/net/ethernet/cavium/liquidio/lio_main.c

@@ -3505,6 +3505,16 @@ static int setup_nic_devices(struct octeon_device *octeon_dev)
 		 */
 		netdev->netdev_ops = &lionetdevops;

+		lio = GET_LIO(netdev);
+
+		memset(lio, 0, sizeof(struct lio));
+
+		lio->ifidx = ifidx_or_pfnum;
+
+		props = &octeon_dev->props[i];
+		props->gmxport = resp->cfg_info.linfo.gmxport;
+		props->netdev = netdev;

Moving this initialization earlier fixes the memory leak, but now if
netif_set_real_num_rx_queues() or netif_set_real_num_tx_queues() fails
below, the cleanup path in liquidio_destroy_nic_device() will proceed
further than before since props->netdev is no longer NULL.

Previously, when queue setup failed, liquidio_destroy_nic_device() would
return early at the "if (!netdev)" check. Now it continues and calls
cleanup_rx_oom_poll_fn().

In cleanup_rx_oom_poll_fn() (lio_core.c), the code does:

    struct lio *lio = GET_LIO(netdev);
    struct octeon_device *oct = lio->oct_dev;
    ...
    for (q_no = 0; q_no < oct->num_oqs; q_no++) {

Since lio->oct_dev is not assigned until much later in setup_nic_devices()
(around line 3602), it will be NULL after the memset above. Would this
cause a NULL pointer dereference when cleanup_rx_oom_poll_fn() tries to
access oct->num_oqs?

quoted

+
 		retval = netif_set_real_num_rx_queues(netdev, num_oqueues);
 		if (retval) {
 			dev_err(&octeon_dev->pci_dev->dev,

[ ... ]

Strangely the AI review did not pick this up for v1.
(And neither did I.)

Hi Simon,

Apologies for missing this dependency.

I will update the code to initialize lio->oct_dev alongside props->netdev
to prevent NULL pointer dereference in cleanup_rx_oom_poll_fn().

Thanks,
Zilin