netdev - Re: [PATCH net-next 3/6] cnic: Fix panic in cnic_iscsi_nl_msg

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Date:	Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:33:36 -0800
From:	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
To:	Michael Chan <mchan@...adcom.com>
Cc:	"'Simon Horman'" <horms@...ge.net.au>,
	"davem@...emloft.net" <davem@...emloft.net>,
	"netdev@...r.kernel.org" <netdev@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next 3/6] cnic: Fix panic in
	cnic_iscsi_nl_msg_recv() when device is down.

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 11:11:09AM -0800, Michael Chan wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 2010-02-26 at 10:40 -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 11:01:59PM -0800, Michael Chan wrote:
> > > Simon Horman wrote:
> > > 
> > > > On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 04:42:06PM -0800, Michael Chan wrote:
> > > > > Some data structures are freed when the device is down and it will
> > > > > crash if an ISCSI netlink message is received.  Add RCU protection
> > > > > to prevent this.  In the shutdown path, ulp_ops[CNIC_ULP_L4] is
> > > > > assigned NULL and rcu_synchronized before freeing the data
> > > > > structures.
> > > >
> > > > Is rcu_assign_pointer() unnecessary in cnic_cm_open()?
> > > > It doesn't seem to be followed by rcu_synchronized() and the pointer
> > > > doesn't seem to be accessible anywhere else at that time.
> > > 
> > > We assign a valid pointer in cnic_cm_open() so that it can be used
> > > during run-time (in service_kcqes() for example).  During shutdown in
> > > cnic_stop_hw(), we assign NULL followed by rcu_synchronize().
> > 
> > So you are saying that when the pointer is assigned in cnic_cm_open(),
> > there cannot possibly be any concurrent reading threads?
> 
> Right.  The hardware has not been started yet so there will be no events
> to process from the hardware.  The pointer is read when processing these
> hardware events.
> 
> > 
> > Use of an explicit rcu_assign_pointer() would be better if so.
> 
> Yes, we use rcu_assign_pointer in cnic_cm_open() when assigning the
> valid pointer in cnic_cm_open().  Thanks.

Sounds very good, thank you!

							Thanx, Paul
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