Re: [PATCH] clk: Fix race conditions between clk_set_parent() andclk_enable()

From: Saravana Kannan
Date: Wed May 30 2012 - 23:47:41 EST


On 05/23/2012 02:16 AM, Peter De Schrijver wrote:
On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 08:06:45PM +0200, Turquette, Mike wrote:
On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 6:58 AM, Peter De Schrijver
<pdeschrijver@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 08:20:44PM +0200, Saravana Kannan wrote:
On 05/11/2012 09:59 PM, Saravana Kannan wrote:
Without this patch, the following race conditions are possible.

Race condition 1:
* clk-A has two parents - clk-X and clk-Y.
* All three are disabled and clk-X is current parent.
* Thread A: clk_set_parent(clk-A, clk-Y).
* Thread A:<snip execution flow>
* Thread A: Grabs enable lock.
* Thread A: Sees enable count of clk-A is 0, so doesn't enable clk-Y.
* Thread A: Releases enable lock.
* Thread B: Calls clk_enable(clk-A), which in turn enables clk-X.
* Thread A: Switches clk-A's parent to clk-Y in hardware.

clk-A is now enabled in software, but not clocking in hardware.

Race condition 2:
* clk-A has two parents - clk-X and clk-Y.
* All three are disabled and clk-X is current parent.
* Thread A: clk_set_parent(clk-A, clk-Y).
* Thread A:<snip execution flow>
* Thread A: Switches parent in hardware to clk-Y.
* Thread A: Grabs enable lock.
* Thread A: Sees enable count of clk-A is 0, so doesn't disable clk-X.
* Thread A: Releases enable lock.
* Thread B: Calls clk_enable(clk-A)
* Thread B: Software state still says parent is clk-X.
* Thread B: So, enables clk-X and then itself.
* Thread A: Updates parent in software state to clk-Y.


This looks correct to me. Is there any usecase where enabling/disabling a
clock would require sleeping but changing the parent would not?


clk_enable& clk_disable must never sleep. clk_prepare and
clk_unprepare may sleep.


In that case the clock is actually enabled in clk_prepare and disabled in
clk_unprepare I guess (and clk_enable/clk_disable are dummy functions)?

What I'm trying to say is that I don't think there are clocks which can be
enabled/disabled using non blocking operations, but where a parent change
would require a blocking operation.

Cheers,

Peter.

Mark, Shawn, Russell,

Can you guys please respond? I'm surprised that no one seem to care about fixing race conditions between clk_set_parent/clk_set_rate() and clk_enable() that will result in incorrect enable count propagation and have the SW get out of sync with HW.

If we absolutely need to support clocks that where the ops->set_parent() is not atomic and can't go with the CLK_SET_PARENT_GATE option, then maybe we can add a "I promise the consumers of this clock won't call clk_set_parent() and clk_enable() in a racy way" clock flag (CLK_IGNORE_PARENT_ENABLE_RACE). Yes, it would be a hack for such clocks, but that's still better than leaving a gaping hole for all the clocks.

-Saravana

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