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* ethtool physical identify vs netlink locking?
@ 2011-03-29 20:52 Stephen Hemminger
  2011-03-30  0:07 ` Ben Hutchings
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Stephen Hemminger @ 2011-03-29 20:52 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: David Miller; +Cc: netdev

Right now if an administrator uses the ethtool function to identify network
interface, the netlink lock can be held indefinitely. In other words, doing
"ethtool -p eth1" will stop all other netlink activity. This is bad, imagine
the case of an operator doing that to find a NIC in a rack, and because of
the netlink lockout all routing daemon activity stops.

There are several possible solutions but most involve fixing all the device
drivers (24). Options:

1. Have device driver drop and reacquire rtnl() while blinking
2. Have ethtool core drop rtnl before calling device driver
3. Add per-device ethtool rtnl lock

#1 is the least disruption
#2 means additional locking maybe required for each device driver
#3 seems like excessive overhead.

Comments?

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2011-03-30  6:29 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 6+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2011-03-29 20:52 ethtool physical identify vs netlink locking? Stephen Hemminger
2011-03-30  0:07 ` Ben Hutchings
2011-03-30  0:13   ` David Miller
2011-03-30  0:23   ` Stephen Hemminger
2011-03-30  1:35   ` Michał Mirosław
2011-03-30  6:29     ` Stephen Hemminger

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