Re: [RFC PATCH net-next 01/12] netdevsim: Block until all devices are released

[Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2023 10:42:46 +0300 Ido Schimmel wrote:
> Like other buses, devices on the netdevsim bus have a release callback
> that is invoked when the reference count of the device drops to zero.
> However, unlike other buses such as PCI, the release callback is not
> necessarily built into the kernel, as netdevsim can be built as a
> module.
> 
> This above is problematic as nothing prevents the module from being
> unloaded before the release callback has been invoked, which can happen
> asynchronously. One such example is going to be added in subsequent
> patches where devlink will call put_device() from an RCU callback.
> 
> The issue is not theoretical and the reproducer in [1] can reliably
> crash the kernel. The conclusion of this discussion was that the issue
> should be solved in netdevsim, which is what this patch is trying to do.
> 
> Add a reference count that is increased when a device is added to the
> bus and decreased when a device is released. Signal a completion when
> the reference count drops to zero and wait for the completion when
> unloading the module so that the module will not be unloaded before all
> the devices were released. The reference count is initialized to one so
> that completion is only signaled when unloading the module.
> 
> With this patch, the reproducer in [1] no longer crashes the kernel.
> 
> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20230619125015.1541143-2-idosch@nvidia.com/
> 
> Signed-off-by: Ido Schimmel <idosch@nvidia.com>

Reviewed-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>