Re: [2.6 PATCH/RFC] Firmware loader - fix races and resource dealloocation problems

From: Dmitry Torokhov
Date: Mon Dec 22 2003 - 22:30:40 EST


On Monday 22 December 2003 04:37 am, Greg KH wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 21, 2003 at 01:37:39AM -0500, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > It seems that implementation of the firmware loader is racy as it
> > relies on kobject hotplug handler. Unfortunately that handler runs
> > too early, before firmware class attributes controlling the loading
> > process, are created. This causes firmware loading fail at least half
> > of the times on my laptop.
>
> Um, why not have your script wait until the files are present? That
> will remove any race conditions you will have.
>

How long should the userspace wait? One second as Manuel suggested?
Indefinitely? Or should the firmware agent have some timeout? If userspace
uses a timeout how should it correlate with the timeout on the kernel side?

I am sorry but I have to disagree with you. Kernel should not call user
space until it has all infrastructure in place and is ready. Anything
else is just a sloppy practice.

Dmitry
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