Re: [PATCH v3] driver core: Break infinite loop when deferred probe can't be satisfied

Andrzej Hajda
2020-06-09T09:27:26Z

On 09.06.2020 08:45, Marco Felsch wrote:
> On 20-06-08 13:11, Andrzej Hajda wrote:
>> On 08.06.2020 11:17, Marco Felsch wrote:
>>> On 20-03-26 18:31, Andy Shevchenko wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Mar 26, 2020 at 03:01:22PM +0000, Grant Likely wrote:
>>>>> On 25/03/2020 12:51, Andy Shevchenko wrote:
>>>>>> On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 08:29:01PM -0700, Saravana Kannan wrote:
>>>>>>> On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 5:38 AM Andy Shevchenko <andriy.shevchenko@linux.intel.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> Consider the following scenario.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The main driver of USB OTG controller (dwc3-pci), which has the following
>>>>>>>> functional dependencies on certain platform:
>>>>>>>> - ULPI (tusb1210)
>>>>>>>> - extcon (tested with extcon-intel-mrfld)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Note, that first driver, tusb1210, is available at the moment of
>>>>>>>> dwc3-pci probing, while extcon-intel-mrfld is built as a module and
>>>>>>>> won't appear till user space does something about it.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> This is depicted by kernel configuration excerpt:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> CONFIG_PHY_TUSB1210=y
>>>>>>>> CONFIG_USB_DWC3=y
>>>>>>>> CONFIG_USB_DWC3_ULPI=y
>>>>>>>> CONFIG_USB_DWC3_DUAL_ROLE=y
>>>>>>>> CONFIG_USB_DWC3_PCI=y
>>>>>>>> CONFIG_EXTCON_INTEL_MRFLD=m
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In the Buildroot environment the modules are probed by alphabetical ordering
>>>>>>>> of their modaliases. The latter comes to the case when USB OTG driver will be
>>>>>>>> probed first followed by extcon one.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> So, if the platform anticipates extcon device to be appeared, in the above case
>>>>>>>> we will get deferred probe of USB OTG, because of ordering.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Since current implementation, done by the commit 58b116bce136 ("drivercore:
>>>>>>>> deferral race condition fix") counts the amount of triggered deferred probe,
>>>>>>>> we never advance the situation -- the change makes it to be an infinite loop.
>>>>>>> Hi Andy,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm trying to understand this sequence of steps. Sorry if the questions
>>>>>>> are stupid -- I'm not very familiar with USB/PCI stuff.
>>>>>> Thank you for looking into this. My answer below.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As a first thing I would like to tell that there is another example of bad
>>>>>> behaviour of deferred probe with no relation to USB. The proposed change also
>>>>>> fixes that one (however, less possible to find in real life).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ---8<---8<---
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> [ 22.187127] driver_deferred_probe_trigger <<< 1
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ...here is the late initcall triggers deferred probe...
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> [ 22.191725] platform dwc3.0.auto: deferred_probe_work_func in deferred list
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ...dwc3.0.auto is the only device in the deferred list...
>>>>>>> Ok, dwc3.0.auto is the only unprobed device at this point?
>>>>>> Correct.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> [ 22.198727] platform dwc3.0.auto: deferred_probe_work_func 1 <<< counter 1
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ...the counter before mutex is unlocked is kept the same...
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> [ 22.205663] platform dwc3.0.auto: Retrying from deferred list
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ...mutes has been unlocked, we try to re-probe the driver...
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> [ 22.211487] bus: 'platform': driver_probe_device: matched device dwc3.0.auto with driver dwc3
>>>>>>>> [ 22.220060] bus: 'platform': really_probe: probing driver dwc3 with device dwc3.0.auto
>>>>>>>> [ 22.238735] bus: 'ulpi': driver_probe_device: matched device dwc3.0.auto.ulpi with driver tusb1210
>>>>>>>> [ 22.247743] bus: 'ulpi': really_probe: probing driver tusb1210 with device dwc3.0.auto.ulpi
>>>>>>>> [ 22.256292] driver: 'tusb1210': driver_bound: bound to device 'dwc3.0.auto.ulpi'
>>>>>>>> [ 22.263723] driver_deferred_probe_trigger <<< 2
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ...the dwc3.0.auto probes ULPI, we got successful bound and bumped counter...
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> [ 22.268304] bus: 'ulpi': really_probe: bound device dwc3.0.auto.ulpi to driver tusb1210
>>>>>>> So where did this dwc3.0.auto.ulpi come from?
>>>>>>> Looks like the device is created by dwc3_probe() through this call flow:
>>>>>>> dwc3_probe() -> dwc3_core_init() -> dwc3_core_ulpi_init() ->
>>>>>>> dwc3_ulpi_init() -> ulpi_register_interface() -> ulpi_register()
>>>>>> Correct.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> [ 22.276697] platform dwc3.0.auto: Driver dwc3 requests probe deferral
>>>>>>> Can you please point me to which code patch actually caused the probe
>>>>>>> deferral?
>>>>>> Sure, it's in drd.c.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> if (device_property_read_string(dev, "linux,extcon-name", &name) == 0) {
>>>>>> edev = extcon_get_extcon_dev(name);
>>>>>> if (!edev)
>>>>>> return ERR_PTR(-EPROBE_DEFER);
>>>>>> return edev;
>>>>>> }
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ...but extcon driver is still missing...
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> [ 22.283174] platform dwc3.0.auto: Added to deferred list
>>>>>>>> [ 22.288513] platform dwc3.0.auto: driver_deferred_probe_add_trigger local counter: 1 new counter 2
>>>>>>> I'm not fully aware of all the USB implications, but if extcon is
>>>>>>> needed, why can't that check be done before we add and probe the ulpi
>>>>>>> device? That'll avoid this whole "fake" probing and avoid the counter
>>>>>>> increase. And avoid the need for this patch that's touching the code
>>>>>>> code that's already a bit delicate.
>>>>>>> Also, with my limited experience with all the possible drivers in the
>>>>>>> kernel, it's weird that the ulpi device is added and probed before we
>>>>>>> make sure the parent device (dwc3.0.auto) can actually probe
>>>>>>> successfully.
>>>>>> As I said above the deferred probe trigger has flaw on its own.
>>>>>> Even if we fix for USB case, there is (and probably will be) others.
>>>>> Right here is the driver design bug. A driver's probe() hook should *not*
>>>>> return -EPROBE_DEFER after already creating child devices which may have
>>>>> already been probed.
>>>> Any documentation statement for this requirement?
>>>>
>>>> By the way, I may imagine other mechanisms that probe the driver on other CPU
>>>> at the same time (let's consider parallel modprobes). The current code has a
>>>> flaw with that.
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> sorry for picking this up again but I stumbled above the same issue
>>> within the driver imx/drm driver which is using the component framework.
>>> I end up in a infinity boot loop if I enabled the HDMI (which is the
>>> DesignWare bridge device) and the LVDS support and the LVDS bind return
>>> with EPROBE_DEFER. There are no words within the component framework docs
>>> which says that this is forbidden. Of course we can work-around the
>>> driver-core framework but IMHO this shouldn't be the way to go. I do not
>>> say that we should revert the commit introducing the regression but we
>>> should address this not only by extending the docs since the most
>>> drm-drivers are using the component framework and can end up in the same
>>> situation.
>> I am not sure why do you think this is similar issue.
> Because I see trying to bind the device over and over..
>
>> Please describe the issue in more detail. Which drivers defers probe and
>> why, and why do you have infinite loop.
> As said I'm currently on the imx-drm driver. The iMX6 devices are
> using the synopsis HDMI IP core and so they are using this bridge device
> driver (drivers/gpu/drm/bridge/synopsys/). The imx-drm driver can be
> build module wise. As example I enabled the LDB and the HDMI support.
> The HDMI driver is composed as platform driver with different
> (sub-)drivers and devices. Those devices are populated by the HDMI core
> driver _probe() function and triggers a driver_deferred_probe_trigger()
> after the driver successfully probed. The LDB driver bind() returns
> -EPROBE_DEFER because the panel we are looking for depends on a defered
> regulator device. Now the defered probe code tries to probe the defered
> devices again because the local-trigger count was changed by the HDMI
> driver and we are in the never ending loop.
>
>> In general deferring probe from bind is not forbidden, but it should be
>> used carefully (as everything in kernel :) ). Fixing deferring probe
>> issues in many cases it is a matter of figuring out 'dependency loops'
>> and breaking them by splitting device initialization into more than one
>> phase.
> We are on the way of splitting the imx-drm driver but there are many
> other DRM drivers using the component framework. As far as I can see the
> sunxi8 driver is component based and uses the same HDMI driver. I'm with
> Andy that we should fix that on the common/core place.

I have looked at the drivers and I see the main issue I see is that imx
drivers performs resource acquisition in bind phase. I think rule of
thumb should be "do not expose yourself, until you are ready", which in
this case means "do not call component_add, until resources are
acquired" - ie resource acquisition should be performed in probe. I use
this approach mainly to avoid multiple deferred re-probes, but it should
solve also this issue, so even if there will be solution to "deferred
probe issues" in core it would be good to fix imx drivers.

Regards

Andrzej

>
> Regards,
> Marco
>
>> Regards
>>
>> Andrzej
>>
>>
>>>>> It can be solved by refactoring the driver probe routine. If a resource is
>>>>> required to be present, then check that it is available early; before
>>>>> registering child devices.
>>>> We fix one and leave others.
>>> E.g. the imx-drm and the sunxi driver...
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Marco
>>>
>>>>> The proposed solution to modify driver core is fragile and susceptible to
>>>>> side effects from other probe paths. I don't think it is the right approach.
>>>> Have you tested it on your case? Does it fix the issue?
>>>>