Re: Can printk() sleep at runtime?

From: Petr Mladek
Date: Thu May 31 2018 - 06:05:07 EST


Adding Geert and timer people into Cc.

On Thu 2018-05-31 17:08:49, Jia-Ju Bai wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I write a static analysis tool (DSAC), and it finds that printk can sleep.
> According to this finding, there is an example bug in drivers/pci/pci.c in
> Linux-4.16.7.
>
> Here is the call path for this bug.
> Please look at it *from the bottom up*.
>
> ========== BUG ==========
> [FUNC] __might_sleep
> kernel/locking/mutex.c: 747: __might_sleep in __mutex_lock_common
> kernel/locking/mutex.c: 893: __mutex_lock_common in __mutex_lock
> kernel/locking/mutex.c: 908: __mutex_lock in mutex_lock_nested
> drivers/clk/clk.c, 123: mutex_lock_nested in clk_prepare_lock
> drivers/clk/clk.c, 1369: clk_prepare_lock in clk_core_get_rate
> drivers/clk/clk.c, 1393: clk_core_get_rate in clk_get_rate
> lib/vsprintf.c, 1450: clk_get_rate in clock

The problem is in %pCr print format implementation. It calls
clk_get_rate() that might sleep. I wonder if we could use some
lock-less alternative instead.

Anyway, we need to fix or remove this format. vsprintf-like functions
are called in any context and nobody expect that they might sleep.

In each case, printk() must call it under logbuf_lock spinlock.
Otherwise, it would need to allocate a buffer for the formatted
string and it is not acceptable.

Best Regards,
Petr

> lib/vsprintf.c, 1944: clock in pointer
> lib/vsprintf.c, 2286: pointer in vsnprintf
> lib/vsprintf.c, 2385: vsnprintf in vscnprintf
> kernel/printk/printk.c, 1853: vscnprintf in vprintk_emit
> kernel/printk/printk.c, 1947: vprintk_emit in vprintk_default
> kernel/printk/printk_safe.c, 379: vprintk_default in vprintk_func
> kernel/printk/printk.c, 1980: vprintk_func in printk
> drivers/pci/pci.c, 5364: printk in pci_specified_resource_alignment
> drivers/pci/pci.c, 5313: spin_lock in pci_specified_resource_alignment
>
> In fact, I suspect that my report is false, because I always have an
> impression that printk() cannot sleep.
> But according to the call path, I cannot find where I make the mistake...
>
> So could someone please help me to point the mistake?
>
>
> Best wishes,
> Jia-Ju Bai