Re: [RFT PATCH 01/15] drm/armada: Call drm_atomic_helper_shutdown() at shutdown time

[Maxime Ripard]

On Sun, Sep 03, 2023 at 04:53:42PM +0100, Russell King (Oracle) wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 01, 2023 at 04:41:12PM -0700, Douglas Anderson wrote:
> > Based on grepping through the source code this driver appears to be
> > missing a call to drm_atomic_helper_shutdown() at system shutdown
> > time. Among other things, this means that if a panel is in use that it
> > won't be cleanly powered off at system shutdown time.
> > 
> > The fact that we should call drm_atomic_helper_shutdown() in the case
> > of OS shutdown/restart comes straight out of the kernel doc "driver
> > instance overview" in drm_drv.c.
> > 
> > This driver was fairly easy to update. The drm_device is stored in the
> > drvdata so we just have to make sure the drvdata is NULL whenever the
> > device is not bound.
> 
> ... and there I think you have a misunderstanding of the driver model.
> Please have a look at device_unbind_cleanup() which will be called if
> probe fails, or when the device is removed (in other words, when it is
> not bound to a driver.)
> 
> Also, devices which aren't bound to a driver won't have their shutdown
> method called (because there is no driver currently bound to that
> device.) So, ->probe must have completed successfully, and ->remove
> must not have been called for that device.
> 
> So, I think that all these dev_set_drvdata(dev, NULL) that you're
> adding are just asking for a kernel janitor to come along later and
> remove them because they serve no purpose... so best not introduce
> them in the first place.

What would that hypothetical janitor clean up exactly? Code making sure
that there's no dangling pointer? Doesn't look very wise to me.

Maxime