Re: [PATCH] net: phy: adin1100: Fix nullptr exception for phy interrupts

[Heiner Kallweit]

On 18.01.2024 21:09, Andrew Lunn wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 18, 2024 at 06:36:16PM +0100, Heiner Kallweit wrote:
>> On 18.01.2024 17:53, Andrew Lunn wrote:
>>> On Thu, Jan 18, 2024 at 11:43:41AM +0100, Andre Werner wrote:
>>>> If using ADIN1100 as an external phy, e.g. in combination with
>>>> "smsc95xx", we ran into nullptr exception by creating a link.
>>>>
>>>> In our case the "smsc95xx" does not check for an available interrupt handler
>>>> on external phy driver to use poll instead of interrupts if no handler is
>>>> available. So we decide to implement a small handler in the phy driver
>>>> to support other MACs as well.
>>>>
>>>> I update the driver to add an interrupt handler because libphy
>>>> does not check if their is a interrupt handler available either.
>>>>
>>>> There are several interrupts maskable at the phy, but only link change interrupts
>>>> are handled by the driver yet.
>>>>
>>>> We tested the combination "smsc95xx" and "adin1100" with Linux Kernel 6.6.9
>>>> and Linux Kernel 6.1.0, respectively.
>>>
>>> Hi Andre
>>>
>>> A few different things....
>>>
>>> Please could you give more details of the null pointer
>>> exception. phylib should test if the needed methods have been
>>> implemented in the PHY driver, and not tried to use interrupts when
>>> they are missing. It should of polled the PHY. So i would like to
>>> understand what went wrong. Maybe we have a phylib core bug we should
>>> be fixing. Or a bug in the smsc95xx driver.
>>>
>> Seems to be a bug in smsc95xx. The following is the relevant code piece.
>>
>> ret = mdiobus_register(pdata->mdiobus);
>> 	if (ret) {
>> 		netdev_err(dev->net, "Could not register MDIO bus\n");
>> 		goto free_mdio;
>> 	}
>>
>> 	pdata->phydev = phy_find_first(pdata->mdiobus);
>> 	if (!pdata->phydev) {
>> 		netdev_err(dev->net, "no PHY found\n");
>> 		ret = -ENODEV;
>> 		goto unregister_mdio;
>> 	}
>>
>> 	pdata->phydev->irq = phy_irq;
>>
>> The interrupt is set too late, after phy_probe(), where we have this:
>>
>> if (!phy_drv_supports_irq(phydrv) && phy_interrupt_is_valid(phydev))
>> 		phydev->irq = PHY_POLL;
>>
>> So we would have two steps:
>> 1. Fix the smsc95xx bug (as the same issue could occur with another PHY type)
> 
> Its not so nice to fix.
> 
> Normally you would do something like:
> 
>         pdata->mdiobus->priv = dev;
>         pdata->mdiobus->read = smsc95xx_mdiobus_read;
>         pdata->mdiobus->write = smsc95xx_mdiobus_write;
>         pdata->mdiobus->reset = smsc95xx_mdiobus_reset;
>         pdata->mdiobus->name = "smsc95xx-mdiobus";
>         pdata->mdiobus->parent = &dev->udev->dev;
> 
>         snprintf(pdata->mdiobus->id, ARRAY_SIZE(pdata->mdiobus->id),
>                  "usb-%03d:%03d", dev->udev->bus->busnum, dev->udev->devnum);
> 
> 	pdata->mdiobus->irq[X] = phy_irq;
> 
> 	ret = mdiobus_register(pdata->mdiobus);
> 
> By setting pdata->mdiobus->irq[X] before registering the PHY, the irq
> number gets passed to the phydev->irq very early on. If everything is
> O.K, interrupts are then used.
> 
> However, because of the use of phy_find_first(), we have no idea what
> address on the bus the PHY is using. So we don't know which member of
> irq[] to set. Its not ideal, but one solution is to set them all.
> 
> However, a better solution is to perform the validation again in
> phy_attach_direct(). Add a second:
> 
> 	if (!phy_drv_supports_irq(phydrv) && phy_interrupt_is_valid(phydev))
>         	phydev->irq = PHY_POLL;
> 
This would save us here, but can't prevent that phydev->irq may be set
even later. I think, ideally nobody should ever access phydev->irq directly.
There should be a setter which performs the needed checks.
But it may be a longer journey to make parts of struct phy_device private
to phylib.

> which will force phydev->irq back to polling.
> 
>       Andrew

Heiner