Re: [PATCH] sbp2: fix spinlock recursion

From: Stefan Richter
Date: Sun Apr 02 2006 - 05:37:05 EST


Andrew Morton wrote:
Stefan Richter <stefanr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

@@ -2540,6 +2537,7 @@ static int sbp2scsi_abort(struct scsi_cm
command->Current_done(command->Current_SCpnt);
}
}
+ spin_unlock_irqrestore(&scsi_id->sbp2_command_orb_lock, flags);


This changes the call environment for all implementations of
->Current_done(). Are they all safe to call under this lock?

Short answer: Yes, trust me. ;-) Long answer:

The done() callbacks are passed on to sbp2 from the SCSI stack along with each SCSI command via the queuecommand hook. The done() callback is safe to call in atomic context. So does Documentation/scsi/scsi_mid_low_api.txt say, and many if not all SCSI low-level handlers rely on this fact. So whatever this callback does, it is "self-contained" and it won't conflict with sbp2's internal ORB list handling. In particular, it won't race with the sbp2_command_orb_lock.

Moreover, sbp2 already calls the done() handler with sbp2_command_orb_lock taken in sbp2scsi_complete_all_commands(). I admit this is ultimately no proof of correctness, especially since this portion of code introduced the spinlock recursion in the first place and we didn't realize it since this code's submission before 2.6.15 until now. (I have learned a lesson from this.)

I stress-tested my patch on x86 uniprocessor with a preemptible SMP kernel (alas I have no SMP machine yet) and made sure that all code paths which involve the sbp2_command_orb_lock were gone through multiple times. Which is of course also no proof.
--
Stefan Richter
-=====-=-==- -=-- ---=-
http://arcgraph.de/sr/
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