Re: [PATCH v2] staging: tidspbridge: protect dmm_map properly

From: Felipe Contreras
Date: Wed Dec 29 2010 - 04:39:17 EST


On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 2:37 PM, Ohad Ben-Cohen <ohad@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 2:24 PM, Felipe Contreras
> <felipe.contreras@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> user-space crashed, not kernel-space; the code would continue to run
>> and eventually release the lock.
>
> So you'll have to be more specific about the scenario you are describing.
>
> If there's a user thread that is still running the proc_*_dma()
> function, and we agree that this thread keeps running until completion
> and then returns to user space, what's the problem ?

The problem is if the user-space process crashes exactly in the middle
of it, *before* completing. With locks there's no problem, as
proc_un_map() would wait for the lock in my patch. In your patch it
would not wait, just return -EBUSY.

> If that user thread will crash, drv_remove_all_resources() will clean
> up all map_obj's.

Not if a proc_*_dma() is still running.

There's a very narrow timing window where this could happen, but it is there.

--
Felipe Contreras
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