linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v2] firmware: fix sending -ERESTARTSYS due to signal on fallback

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Message-ID: <20170609211217.GE27288@wotan.suse.de>
Date:   Fri, 9 Jun 2017 23:12:17 +0200
From:   "Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@...nel.org>
To:     Martin Fuzzey <mfuzzey@...keon.com>
Cc:     "Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@...nel.org>,
        Linux FS Devel <linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Alan Cox <alan@...ux.intel.com>, Ted Ts'o <tytso@....edu>,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
        Dmitry Torokhov <dmitry.torokhov@...il.com>,
        "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages@...il.com>,
        Linux API <linux-api@...r.kernel.org>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Daniel Wagner <wagi@...om.org>,
        David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>,
        jewalt@...innovations.com, rafal@...ecki.pl,
        Arend Van Spriel <arend.vanspriel@...adcom.com>,
        "Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@...ysocki.net>,
        "Li, Yi" <yi1.li@...ux.intel.com>, atull@...nsource.altera.com,
        Moritz Fischer <moritz.fischer@...us.com>,
        Petr Mladek <pmladek@...e.com>,
        Johannes Berg <johannes.berg@...el.com>,
        Emmanuel Grumbach <emmanuel.grumbach@...el.com>,
        Luca Coelho <luciano.coelho@...el.com>,
        Kalle Valo <kvalo@...eaurora.org>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>,
        AKASHI Takahiro <takahiro.akashi@...aro.org>,
        David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>,
        Peter Jones <pjones@...hat.com>,
        Hans de Goede <hdegoede@...hat.com>,
        "linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] firmware: fix sending -ERESTARTSYS due to signal on
 fallback

On Fri, Jun 09, 2017 at 09:40:47AM +0200, Martin Fuzzey wrote:
> On 09/06/17 03:57, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 6:10 PM, Luis R. Rodriguez <mcgrof@...nel.org> wrote:
> > > > Android didn't send the signal, the kernel did (SIGCHLD).
> > > > 
> > > > Like this:
> > > > 
> > > > 1) Android init (pid=1) fork()s (say pid=42) [this child process is totally
> > > > unrelated to firmware loading]
> > > > 2) Android init (pid=1) does a write() on a (driver custom) sysfs file which
> > > > ends up calling request_firmware() kernel side
> > > > 3) The firmware loading fallback mechanism is used, the request is sent to
> > > > userspace and pid 1 waits in the kernel on wait_*
> > > > 4) before firmware loading completes pid 42 dies (for any reason - in my
> > > > case normal termination)
> > Martin just to be clear, by "normal case termination" do you mean
> > completing successfully ?? Ie the firmware actually did make it onto
> > the device ?
> 
> The firmware did *not* make it onto the device since the request_firmware()
> call returned an error
> (the code that would have transfered it to the device is only executed
> following a successful request_firmware)
> 
> The process that terminates normally is unrelated to firmware loading as I
> said above.
> 
> The only things that matter are:
> - It is a child process of the process that calls request_firmware()
> - It terminates *while* the the wait_ is still in progress
> 
> 
> Here is a way of reproducing the problem using the test_firmware module
> (which I only just saw) on normal linux with no Android or custom driver
> 
> 
> #!/bin/sh
> set -e
> 
> # Make sure the system firmware loader doesn't get in the way
> /etc/init.d/udev stop
> 
> modprobe test_firmware
> 
> DIR=/sys/devices/virtual/misc/test_firmware
> 
> echo 10 >/sys/class/firmware/timeout;
> sleep 2 &
> echo -n "/some/non/existing/file.bin" > "$DIR"/trigger_request;
> 
> 
> 
> If run with the "sleep 2 &" it terminates after 2 seconds
> If the sleep is commented it runs for the expected 10 seconds (the firmware
> loading timeout)
> 
> Since the sleep process is a child of the script process requesting a
> firmware load its death causes a SIGCHLD causing request_firmware() to abort
> prematurely.

Thanks this could mean we also *should* trigger a failure if init is issuing
modprobe on a series of drivers and one completes before another while
request_firmware() is called on init or probe on a subsequent driver. If true
I'm surprised this never was reported back when the fallback mechanism was
popular, I suppose it was not an issue given most firmware *was* present on
/lib/firmware/ and the direct filesystem lookup first step always found the
firmware first, so this would only be an issue for folks relying on the
fallback mechanism exclusively.

Will include a test case based on your above script. Thanks!

  Luis