Re: [PATCH v4 0/2] vfio/mdev: Device namespace protection

Alex Williamson
2018-05-22T18:38:31Z

On Tue, 22 May 2018 19:17:07 +0200
Halil Pasic <pasic@linux.ibm.com> wrote:

> From vfio-ccw perspective I join Connie's assessment: vfio-ccw should
> be fine with these changes. I'm however not too deeply involved with
> the mdev framework, thus I don't feel comfortable r-b-ing. That results
> in
> Acked-by: Halil Pasic <pasic@linux.ibm.com>
> for both patches.
>
> While at it I have would like to ask about the semantics and intended
> use of the mdev interfaces.
>
> static int vfio_ccw_sch_probe(struct subchannel *sch)
> {
>
> /* HALIL: 8< Not so interesting stuff happens here. >8 */

This was interesting:

private->state = VFIO_CCW_STATE_NOT_OPER;

> ret = vfio_ccw_mdev_reg(sch);
> if (ret)
> goto out_disable;
> /*
> * HALIL:
> * This might be racy. Somewhere in vfio_ccw_mdev_reg() the create attribute
> * is made available (it calls mdev_register_device()). For instance create will
> * attempt to decrement private->avail which is initialized below. I fail to
> * understand how is this well synchronized.
> */
> INIT_WORK(&private->io_work, vfio_ccw_sch_io_todo);
> atomic_set(&private->avail, 1);
> private->state = VFIO_CCW_STATE_STANDBY;
>
> return 0;
>
> out_disable:
> cio_disable_subchannel(sch);
> out_free:
> dev_set_drvdata(&sch->dev, NULL);
> kfree(private);
> return ret;
> }
>
> Should not initialization of go before mdev_register_device(), and then rolled
> back if necessary if mdev_register_device() fails?
>
> In practice it does not seem very likely that userspace can trigger
> mdev_device_create() before vfio_ccw_sch_probe() finishes so it should
> not be a practical problem. But I would like to understand how synchronization
> is supposed to work.
>
> [Added Dong Jia, maybe he is also able to answer my question.]

vfio_ccw_mdev_create() requires that private->state is not
VFIO_CCW_STATE_NOT_OPER but vfio_ccw_sch_probe() explicitly sets state
to this value before calling vfio_ccw_mdev_reg(), so a create should
return -ENODEV if racing with parent registration. Is there something
else that I'm missing? Thanks,

Alex