Re: [PATCH v4 2/2] s390/vfio-ap: control access to PQAP(AQIC) interception handler

Jason Gunthorpe
2021-05-25T14:16:59Z

On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 10:07:46AM -0400, Jason J. Herne wrote:
> On 5/25/21 9:26 AM, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> > On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 09:24:59AM -0400, Jason J. Herne wrote:
> > > change the function pointer to point to vfio_ap_ops:handle_pqap(). When we
> > > unload the module we change the function pointer back to the stub. The
> > > updates should be atomic operations so no lock needed, right?
> >
> > No
> >
> > Jason
> >
>
> Okay... Would you be willing to elaborate, please? A counter argument, or a
> simple explanation would be appreciated. A simple "no" does not really do
> much to advance the discussion :).

Go back and review the earlier thread, the issue was never the
atomicity of the function pointer but the locking of the data that
function is accessing.

> I'm fairly sure that a 64-bit pointer would be updated atomically. A reader
> of this value is either going to see value A or value B, not the high half
> of A and the low half of B. Maybe we also need a memory barrier to prevent
> stale values from being seen on another core?

You need to use special macros in Linux to follow this memory model

Jason