Hello,
Alan Stern wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Apr 2007, Tejun Heo wrote:
>
>> The goal of immediate-disconnect is to remove such lingering reference
>> counts so that device_unregister() or driver detach puts the last
>> reference count.
>
> Yes, I understand. If you had immediate-disconnect then you wouldn't need
> device_unregister_wait(). In fact, you wouldn't need any reference counts
> at all. It would be guaranteed that when the unregister call returned,
> all references would be gone.
>
>> You tell a higher layer that a device is going away, on return from the
>> function, that layer isn't gonna access the device anymore.
>
> No, no. You tell somebody (it might be a higher layer, it might be a
> lower layer, or it might be a same-height layer -- doesn't matter) that a
> device is going away.
Yeap, right. I higher, lower, same, whatever. I was using the term as
drivers usually register to upper layers.
> On return from the function, that layer isn't going
> to access the device any more, _nor_ will anyone else who has obtained a
> reference from that layer. This last clause is very important.
Agreed. That layer is responsible for managing lingering objects and
telling its users that the device is a zombie now.
>> I don't think this is gonna be too difficult to do. I think I can
>> convert block layer and IDE/SCSI drivers without too much problem.
>> Dunno much about other layers tho.
>
> You have to convert more than layers (or core subsystems). You also have
> to audit and convert drivers. It will be tremendously difficult to do.
I definitely can be mis-assessing the problem. I'll first give a shot
at the block/SCSI layer. How about that?
> You did misunderstand. Here's what I was talking about:
>
> Driver A:
> ---------
> unregister_device(dev);
>
> /* inside the driver core */
> down(&dev->sem);
> if (dev->driver)
> dev->driver->remove(dev);
> up(&dev->sem);
> device_put(dev); /* or device_put_wait */
>
>
> Driver B:
> ---------
> void remove(struct device *dev)
> {
> struct my_device *mydev = dev_get_drvdata(dev);
>
> mydev->gone = 1;
> kref_put(&mydev->kref, my_device_release);
> }
>
>
> Driver B's kernel thread:
> -------------------------
> kref_get(&mydev->kref);
> down(&mydev->dev.sem);
> if (mydev->gone)
> goto finished;
> ...
> finished:
> up(&mydev->dev.sem);
> kref_put(&mydev->kref, my_device_release);
>
> Consider what happens if the kernel thread blocks on its down() while the
> remove() method is running. It will be impossible for Driver B to
> eliminate the reference to dev held by mydev and by the down() routine.
>
> In short, Driver B _can't_ provide an immediate detach. Not unless
> someone figures out a way to cancel a blocked down(). And do the same
> thing for other blocking primitives.
Ah.. I see. You're right in that driver B cannot wait for disconnect in
its remove routine in the above code but using a separate mutex to
protect ->gone should do the trick, so I don't think the above case is a
big problem. It's a pretty specific case which is easy to spot and update.
Thanks.
--
tejun
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