[PATCH v7 2/3] drm/sched: Document run_job() refcount hazard

Philipp Stanner
2025-03-05T13:06:08Z

From: Philipp Stanner <pstanner@redhat.com>

drm_sched_backend_ops.run_job() returns a dma_fence for the scheduler.
That fence is signalled by the driver once the hardware completed the
associated job. The scheduler does not increment the reference count on
that fence, but implicitly expects to inherit this fence from run_job().

This is relatively subtle and prone to misunderstandings.

This implies that, to keep a reference for itself, a driver needs to
call dma_fence_get() in addition to dma_fence_init() in that callback.

It's further complicated by the fact that the scheduler even decrements
the refcount in drm_sched_run_job_work() since it created a new
reference in drm_sched_fence_scheduled(). It does, however, still use
its pointer to the fence after calling dma_fence_put() - which is safe
because of the aforementioned new reference, but actually still violates
the refcounting rules.

Move the call to dma_fence_put() to the position behind the last usage
of the fence.

Suggested-by: Danilo Krummrich <dakr@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Philipp Stanner <pstanner@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Danilo Krummrich <dakr@kernel.org>
---
drivers/gpu/drm/scheduler/sched_main.c | 9 ++++++---
1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/drivers/gpu/drm/scheduler/sched_main.c b/drivers/gpu/drm/scheduler/sched_main.c
index c634993f1346..c8da6b4edf0a 100644
--- a/drivers/gpu/drm/scheduler/sched_main.c
+++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/scheduler/sched_main.c
@@ -1216,20 +1216,23 @@ static void drm_sched_run_job_work(struct work_struct *w)
drm_sched_job_begin(sched_job);

trace_drm_run_job(sched_job, entity);
+ /*
+ * The run_job() callback must by definition return a fence whose
+ * refcount has been incremented for the scheduler already.
+ */
fence = sched->ops->run_job(sched_job);
complete_all(&entity->entity_idle);
drm_sched_fence_scheduled(s_fence, fence);

if (!IS_ERR_OR_NULL(fence)) {
- /* Drop for original kref_init of the fence */
- dma_fence_put(fence);
-
r = dma_fence_add_callback(fence, &sched_job->cb,
drm_sched_job_done_cb);
if (r == -ENOENT)
drm_sched_job_done(sched_job, fence->error);
else if (r)
DRM_DEV_ERROR(sched->dev, "fence add callback failed (%d)\n", r);
+
+ dma_fence_put(fence);
} else {
drm_sched_job_done(sched_job, IS_ERR(fence) ?
PTR_ERR(fence) : 0);
--
2.48.1