[PATCH] i2c: pca953x: fix a lockdep warning

From: Bartosz Golaszewski
Date: Mon Aug 22 2016 - 09:29:41 EST


If an I2C GPIO multiplexer is driven by a GPIO provided by an expander
when there's a second expander using the same device driver on one of
the I2C bus segments, lockdep prints a deadlock warning when trying to
set the direction or the value of the GPIOs provided by the second
expander.

The below diagram presents the setup:

- - - - -
------- --------- Bus segment 1 | |
| | | |--------------- Devices
| | SCL/SDA | | | |
| Linux |-----------| I2C MUX | - - - - -
| | | | | Bus segment 2
| | | | |-------------------
------- | --------- |
| | - - - - -
------------ | MUX GPIO | |
| | | Devices
| GPIO | | | |
| Expander 1 |---- - - - - -
| | |
------------ | SCL/SDA
|
------------
| |
| GPIO |
| Expander 2 |
| |
------------

The reason for lockdep warning is that we take the chip->i2c_lock in
pca953x_gpio_set_value() or pca953x_gpio_direction_output() and then
come right back to pca953x_gpio_set_value() when the GPIO mux kicks
in. The locks actually protect different expanders, but lockdep
doesn't see this and says:

Possible unsafe locking scenario:

CPU0
----
lock(&chip->i2c_lock);
lock(&chip->i2c_lock);

*** DEADLOCK ***

May be due to missing lock nesting notation

To shut lockdep up, use mutex_lock_nested() and use the GPIO base
number as the subclass argument (it has the same type).

NOTE: this only fixes a specific issue we're experiencing with our
setup. The problem would probably occur as well with other I2C
expanders under similar circumstances. A proper fix would probably be
to implement a GPIO expander framework that would unduplicate common
code for all drivers.

Signed-off-by: Bartosz Golaszewski <bgolaszewski@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
drivers/gpio/gpio-pca953x.c | 7 ++++++-
1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/gpio/gpio-pca953x.c b/drivers/gpio/gpio-pca953x.c
index 02f2a56..9086079 100644
--- a/drivers/gpio/gpio-pca953x.c
+++ b/drivers/gpio/gpio-pca953x.c
@@ -329,7 +329,12 @@ static void pca953x_gpio_set_value(struct gpio_chip *gc, unsigned off, int val)
u8 reg_val;
int ret, offset = 0;

- mutex_lock(&chip->i2c_lock);
+ /*
+ * We're using mutex_lock_nested() here to avoid a lockdep warning
+ * when there are two pca953x expanders, of which one is used to
+ * control an i2c gpio mux.
+ */
+ mutex_lock_nested(&chip->i2c_lock, chip->gpio_start);
if (val)
reg_val = chip->reg_output[off / BANK_SZ]
| (1u << (off % BANK_SZ));
--
2.7.4