Re: [KVM PATCH v2 2/2] kvm: use POLLHUP to close an irqfd instead of an explicit ioctl

Michael S. Tsirkin
2009-06-18T06:49:38Z

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 02:46:30PM +0930, Rusty Russell wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:24:39 pm Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 08:08:18AM -0400, Gregory Haskins wrote:
> > > Hmm. I understand what you are saying conceptually (i.e. the .text
> > > could get yanked before we hit the next line of code, in this case the
> > > "return 0"). However, holding a reference when you _know_ someone else
> > > holds a reference to me says that one of the references is redundant.
> > > In addition, there is certainly plenty of precedence for
> > > module_put(THIS_MODULE) all throughout the kernel (including
> > > module_put_and_exit()). Are those broken as well?
> >
> > Maybe not, but I don't know why. It works fine as long as you don't
> > unload any modules though :) Rusty, could you enlighten us please?
>
> Yep, they're almost all broken. A few have comments indicating that someone
> else is holding a reference (eg. loopback).
>
> But at some point you give up playing whack-a-mole for random drivers.
>
> module_put_and_exit() does *not* have this problem, BTW.
>
> Rusty.

I see that, the .text for module_put_and_exit is never modular itself.
Thanks, Rusty!

BTW, Gregory, this can be used to fix the race in the design: create a
thread and let it drop the module reference with module_put_and_exit.
Which will work, but I guess at this point we should ask ourselves
whether all the hearburn with srcu, threads and module references is
better than just asking the user to call and ioctl.

--
MST