Driver core: Fix potential deadlock in driver core
There is a potential deadlock in the driver core. It boils down to the fact that bus_remove_device() calls klist_remove() instead of klist_del(), thereby waiting until the reference count of the klist_node in the bus's klist of devices drops to 0. The refcount can't reach 0 so long as a modprobe process is trying to bind a new driver to the device being removed, by calling __driver_attach(). The problem is that __driver_attach() tries to acquire the device's parent's semaphore, but the caller of bus_remove_device() is quite likely to own that semaphore already. It isn't sufficient just to replace klist_remove() with klist_del(). Doing so runs the risk that the device would remain on the bus's klist of devices for some time, and so could be bound to another driver even after it was unregistered. What's needed is a new way to distinguish whether or not a device is registered, based on a criterion other than whether its klist_node is linked into the bus's klist of devices. That way driver binding can fail when the device is unregistered, even if it is still linked into the klist. This patch (as782) implements the solution, by adding a new bitflag to indiate when a struct device is registered, by testing the flag before allowing a driver to bind a device, and by changing the definition of the device_is_registered() inline. Signed-off-by: Alan Stern <stern@rowland.harvard.edu> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
parent
0f397f86
Please register or sign in to comment