[PATCH RFC] Fix bug if earlyprintk is called twice

[gregory.clement@free-electrons.com (Gregory CLEMENT)]

Hello,

If on the kernel command line the parameter "earlyprintk" is written
twice, then setup_early_printk is called twice. This can happen for
example with the option CONFIG_ARM_ATAG_DTB_COMPAT_CMDLINE_EXTEND is
selected, and the "earlyprintk" is passed from the ATAG_CMDLINE and
from the dtb.

This lead to an infinite loop on the message "Booting Linux on
physical CPU 0" displayed from smp_setup_processor_id() in
arch/arm/kernel/setup.c. This behavior as been reproduced on ARMv7
architecture (Armada XP and Armada 370), and on a ARMv5 one
(AT91SAMG35 thanks to Richard Genoud), with and with CONFIG_SMP
selected.

After some investigation I found that the problem happened when the
early_console is register for the second time in file kernel/printk.c
on line 2310 when the function console_lock() is called, and in this
function I managed to have traces until the call to down(&console_sem)
one line 1922. Keep in mind that I had this information using printk
so maybe it was not the best way to debug the console!

I didn't had other platform that ARM one for testing this behavior, so
I don't know if this bug is specific to ARM. If you think it is
something specific to ARM then I propose the patch in the following
email.

Any feedback on this issue would be welcome

Thanks,

Gregory CLEMENT (1):
  ARM: don't allow to register the early_console twice

 arch/arm/kernel/early_printk.c |    6 +++++-
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

-- 
1.7.9.5