Hi kernel-list-readers!
We just had a problem when running some formatting-utils on
a large amount of disks synchronously: We got a NULL-pointer
violation when accessig blk_size[major] for our major number.
Further research showed, that grok_partitions was running at
that time, which has been called by register_disk, which our
device driver issues after a disk has been formatted.
Grok_partitions first initializes blk_size[major] with a NULL
pointer, detects the partitions and then assigns the original
value to blk_size[major] again.
Here's the interresting code from these functions, I cut some
irrelevant things out:
>From grok_paritions:
blk_size[dev->major] = NULL;
check_partition(dev, MKDEV(dev->major, first_minor), 1 + first_minor);
if (dev->sizes != NULL) {
blk_size[dev->major] = dev->sizes;
};
>From generic_make_request:
if (blk_size[major]) {
if (blk_size[major][MINOR(bh->b_rdev)]) {
printk(KERN_INFO
"attempt to access beyond end of device\n");
printk(KERN_INFO "%s: rw=%d, want=%ld, limit=%d\n",
kdevname(bh->b_rdev), rw,
(sector + count)>>1,
blk_size[major][MINOR(bh->b_rdev)]);
}
Can anyone explain to me, why grok_partitions has to clear
this pointer? Why is this all done without any lock which causes
race conditions all over the block-device layer (for example
generic_make_request() in ll_rw_blk.c first checks if the pointer
is set and afterwards accesses the array behind the pointer)?
mit freundlichem Gru
ß / with kind regards
Carsten Otte
IBM Deutschland Entwicklung GmbH
Linux for 390/zSeries Development - Device Driver Team
Phone: +49/07031/16-4076
IBM internal phone: *120-4076
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jun 07 2001 - 21:01:00 EST