Re: [PATCH] PC300 update

[Russell King <rmk+lkml@arm.linux.org.uk>]

On Wed, Jan 28, 2004 at 10:06:25PM -0200, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > > - Mark pci_device_id list with __devinitdata
> >
> > This is bogus and can crash the kernel if you're unlucky.
> 
> Other wan drivers are doing the same:
> 
> [marcelo@logos wan]$ grep __devinitdata *
> farsync.c:static char *type_strings[] __devinitdata = {
> wanxl.c:static struct pci_device_id wanxl_pci_tbl[] __devinitdata = {
> 
> I believe a handful of others are using "__devinitdata". How can the
> kernel crash because of this? Who will try to touch the data?

It is particularly notable when someone inserts a Cardbus device.  A
new PCI device is added, and we scan all drivers looking for a match
using the PCI ID tables.

If _any_ PCI ID table which is part registered as part of a driver is
marked using __devinitdata or __initdata, this will either cause the
kernel to read invalid data (possibly entering a long loop) or oops.

-- 
Russell King
 Linux kernel    2.6 ARM Linux   - http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/
 maintainer of:  2.6 PCMCIA      - http://pcmcia.arm.linux.org.uk/
                 2.6 Serial core