Re: [PATCH] AMCC Crypto4xx Device Driver v2]

[James Hsiao <jhsiao@amcc.com>]

Our crypto engine has a ring architecture, the descriptor ring is
controlled by two variable head and tail. head only get increased/0 when
we get a request. tail obly get increased/0 in packet done interrupt.

It is safe if anytime we can only get one request.

Yes, it's possible to have multiple requests. One can write a test which
loop and sending requests. If two such loops and then we have two
requests...

Ok. I will put back the locks in. The code used to have locks, we
removed for performance optimization.

James 

On Wed, 2008-10-29 at 13:10 -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Oct 2008 10:04:59 -0700
> James Hsiao <jhsiao@amcc.com> wrote:
> > > > > - Complete lack of locking code, how do you enforce mutually exclusive
> > > > > access to the device?
> > > > 
> > > > The crypto engine have couple bits 'command ready' and 'packet done',
> > > > which servers as semaphore here. So, software don't need extra locking.
> > > 
> > > know if it's applicable at all, but I imagine it's not SMP safe.
> > 
> > No, it's not SMP safe. This driver only support single core processors.
> 
> What about preemption?  You do not have to be a multi-core CPU to have
> SMP-like problems.
> 
> josh