Re: ath9k: hwrng blocks for several minutes when phy is un-associated

["Jason A. Donenfeld" <Jason@zx2c4.com>]

Hi Gregory,

On Wed, Jun 22, 2022 at 10:08:15PM -0700, Gregory Erwin wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I bisected down to commit [fcd09c90c3c5] "ath9k: use hw_random API instead of
> directly dumping into random.c'' while investigating a long delay when entering
> suspend on kernels v5.18 onward. There are other reports of hangs or
> unresponsiveness at https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/75138 with some more info.
> 
> AFAIKT, the issue is triggered by the ath9k hwrng when the interface is up,
> but not associated with any AP. In this state, 'dd if=/dev/hwrng' will block
> for up to 231 seconds before finally returning an input/output error. Similarly,
> I get a kernel log message "hwrng: no data available" every 231 seconds.
> 
> The hwrng will unblock when attempting to connect to an SSID that doesn't exist,
> but not when performing a scan, so I'm guessing AR_PHY_TST_ADC only produces new
> data when the phy is transmitting.
> 
> Admittedly, I don't actually know if this blocking behavior is
> expected or not, but it certainly seems undesirable.

Thanks for the report. I wish somebody from one of those bug reports
would have emailed earlier.

I don't have hardware to test this, but could you let me know if the
below patch does something? I'm sort of guessing, but maybe this is
right?

Jason

diff --git a/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/rng.c b/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/rng.c
index cb5414265a9b..a6291f5f0d47 100644
--- a/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/rng.c
+++ b/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/rng.c
@@ -80,7 +80,7 @@ static int ath9k_rng_read(struct hwrng *rng, void *buf, size_t max, bool wait)
 			bytes_read += max & 3UL;
 			memzero_explicit(&word, sizeof(word));
 		}
-		if (!wait || !max || likely(bytes_read) || fail_stats > 110)
+		if (!wait || !max || likely(bytes_read) || fail_stats > 110 || kthread_should_stop())
 			break;

 		msleep_interruptible(ath9k_rng_delay_get(++fail_stats));