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

Grant Likely
2020-03-26T13:48:50Z

On 26/03/2020 11:57, Andy Shevchenko wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 26, 2020 at 09:39:40AM +0100, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
>> On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 11:09 PM Saravana Kannan <saravanak@google.com> wrote:
>>> On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 5:51 AM Andy Shevchenko
>>> <andriy.shevchenko@linux.intel.com> wrote:
>
>>>> Yes, it's (unlikely) possible (*), but it will give one more iteration per such
>>>> case. It's definitely better than infinite loop. Do you agree?
>>>
>>> Sorry I wasn't being clear (I was in a rush). I'm saying this patch
>>> can reintroduce the bug where the deferred probe isn't triggered when
>>> it should be.
>>>
>>> Let's take a simple execution flow.
>>>
>>> probe_okay is at 10.
>>>
>>> Thread-A
>>> really_probe(Device-A)
>>> local_probe_okay_count = 10
>>> Device-A probe function is running...
>>>
>>> Thread-B
>>> really_probe(Device-B)
>>> Device-B probes successfully.
>>> probe_okay incremented to 11
>>>
>>> Thread-C
>>> Device-C (which had bound earlier) is unbound (say module is
>>> unloaded or a million other reasons).
>>> probe_okay is decremented to 10.
>>>
>>> Thread-A continues
>>> Device-A probe function returns -EPROBE_DEFER
>>> driver_deferred_probe_add_trigger() doesn't do anything because
>>> local_probe_okay_count == probe_okay
>>> But Device-A might have deferred probe waiting on Device-B.
>>> Device-A never probes.
>>>
>>>> *) It means during probe you have _intensive_ removing, of course you may keep
>>>> kernel busy with iterations, but it has no practical sense. DoS attacks more
>>>> effective in different ways.
>>>
>>> I wasn't worried about DoS attacks. More of a functional correctness
>>> issue what I explained above.
>>
>> The code is functionally incorrect as is already AFAICS.
>>
>>> Anyway, if your issue and similar issues can be handles in driver core
>>> in a clean way without breaking other cases, I don't have any problem
>>> with that. Just that, I think the current solution breaks other cases.
>>
>> OK, so the situation right now is that commit 58b116bce136 has
>> introduced a regression and so it needs to be fixed or reverted. The
>> cases that were previously broken and were unbroken by that commit
>> don't matter here, so you cannot argue that they would be "broken".
>>
>> It looks to me like the original issue fixed by the commit in question
>> needs to be addressed differently, so I would vote for reverting it
>> and starting over.
>
> I think Saravana's example is not fully correct as I had responded to his mail.
> I would like to hear Grant, but seems he is busy with something and didn't reply.

Sadly I don't look much like a kernel developer these days. The last
code change I committed to the kernel was over 4 years ago.

g.