Re: [RFC] vtunerc: virtual DVB device - is it ok to NACK driver becauseof worrying about possible misusage?

[Mauro Carvalho Chehab]

On 06-12-2011 11:49, Andreas Oberritter wrote:
> On 06.12.2011 14:22, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
> > On 05-12-2011 22:07, HoP wrote:
> > > > I doubt that scan or w_scan would support it. Even if it supports, that
> > > > would mean that,
> > > > for each ioctl that would be sent to the remote server, the error
> > > > code would
> > > > take 480 ms
> > > > to return. Try to calculate how many time w_scan would work with
> > > > that. The
> > > > calculus is easy:
> > > > see how many ioctl's are called by each frequency and multiply by the
> > > > number
> > > > of frequencies
> > > > that it would be seek. You should then add the delay introduced over
> > > > streaming the data
> > > > from the demux, using the same calculus. This is the additional time
> > > > over a
> > > > local w_scan.
> > > >
> > > > A grouch calculus with scandvb: to tune into a single DVB-C
> > > > frequency, it
> > > > used 45 ioctls.
> > > > Each taking 480 ms round trip would mean an extra delay of 21.6 seconds.
> > > > There are 155
> > > > possible frequencies here. So, imagining that scan could deal with 21.6
> > > > seconds of delay
> > > > for each channel (with it doesn't), the extra delay added by it is 1
> > > > hour
> > > > (45 * 0.48 * 155).
> > > >
> > > > On the other hand, a solution like the one described by Florian would
> > > > introduce a delay of
> > > > 480 ms for the entire scan to happen, as only one data packet would be
> > > > needed to send a
> > > > scan request, and one one stream of packets traveling at 10GB/s would
> > > > bring
> > > > the answer
> > > > back.
> > >
> > > Andreas was excited by your imaginations and calculations, but not me.
> > > Now you again manifested you are not treating me as partner for
> > > discussion.
> > > Otherwise you should try to understand how-that-ugly-hack works.
> > > But you surelly didn't try to do it at all.
> > >
> > > How do you find those 45 ioctls for DVB-C tune?
> >
> > With strace. See how many ioctl's are called for each tune. Ok, perhaps
> > scandvb
> > is badly written, but if your idea is to support 100% of the
> > applications, you
> > should be prepared for badly written applications.
> >
> > $strace -e ioctl scandvb dvbc-teste
> > scanning dvbc-teste
> > using '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0'
> > ioctl(3, FE_GET_INFO, 0x60a640)         = 0
> > initial transponder 573000000 5217000 0 5
> > > > > tune to: 573000000:INVERSION_AUTO:5217000:FEC_NONE:QAM_256
> > ioctl(3, FE_SET_FRONTEND, 0x7fff5f7f2cd0) = 0
> > ioctl(3, FE_READ_STATUS, 0x7fff5f7f2cfc) = 0
> > ioctl(3, FE_READ_STATUS, 0x7fff5f7f2cfc) = 0
> > ioctl(3, FE_READ_STATUS, 0x7fff5f7f2cfc) = 0
> > ioctl(4, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1ad0) = 0
> > ioctl(5, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1ad0) = 0
> > ioctl(6, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1ad0) = 0
> > ioctl(7, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(8, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(9, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(10, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(11, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(12, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(13, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(14, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(15, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(16, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(17, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(18, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(19, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(20, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(21, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(22, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(23, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(24, DMX_SET_FILTER, 0x7fff5f7f1910) = 0
> > ioctl(4, DMX_STOP, 0x1)                 = 0
> > ioctl(15, DMX_STOP, 0x1)                = 0
> > ioctl(11, DMX_STOP, 0x1)                = 0
> > ioctl(22, DMX_STOP, 0x1)                = 0
> > ioctl(17, DMX_STOP, 0x1)                = 0
> > ioctl(16, DMX_STOP, 0x1)                = 0
>
> You don't need to wait for write-only operations. Basically all demux
> ioctls are write-only. Since vtunerc is using dvb-core's software demux
> *locally*, errors for invalid arguments etc. will be returned as usual.
>
> What's left is one call to FE_SET_FRONTEND for each frequency to tune
> to, and one FE_READ_STATUS for each time the lock status is queried.
> Note that one may use FE_GET_EVENT instead of FE_READ_STATUS to get
> notified of status changes asynchronously if desired.
>
> Btw.: FE_SET_FRONTEND doesn't block either, because the driver callback
> is called from a dvb_frontend's *local* kernel thread.

Still, vtunerc waits for write operations:

http://code.google.com/p/vtuner/source/browse/vtunerc_proxyfe.c?repo=linux-driver#285

No matter if they are read or write, all of them call this function:

http://code.google.com/p/vtuner/source/browse/vtunerc_ctrldev.c?repo=linux-driver#390

That has a wait_event inside that function, as everything is directed to
the userspace.

This is probably the way Florian found to return the errors returned by
the ioctls. This driver is synchronous, with simplifies it, at the lack of
performance.

Ok, the driver could be smarter than that, and some heuristics could be
added into it, in order to foresee the likely error code, returning it
in advance, and then implementing some asynchronous mechanism that would
handle the error later, but that would be complex and may still introduce
some bad behaviors.

Regards,
Mauro.

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