Re: [PATCH v4 11/23] device-dax: Kill dax_kmem_res

From: Dan Williams
Date: Thu Sep 24 2020 - 17:26:34 EST


[..]
> > I'm not suggesting to busy the whole "virtio" range, just the portion
> > that's about to be passed to add_memory_driver_managed().
>
> I'm afraid I don't get your point. For virtio-mem:
>
> Before:
>
> 1. Create virtio0 container resource
>
> 2. (somewhen in the future) add_memory_driver_managed()
> - Create resource (System RAM (virtio_mem)), marking it busy/driver
> managed
>
> After:
>
> 1. Create virtio0 container resource
>
> 2. (somewhen in the future) Create resource (System RAM (virtio_mem)),
> marking it busy/driver managed
> 3. add_memory_driver_managed()
>
> Not helpful or simpler IMHO.

The concern I'm trying to address is the theoretical race window and
layering violation in this sequence in the kmem driver:

1/ res = request_mem_region(...);
2/ res->flags = IORESOURCE_MEM;
3/ add_memory_driver_managed();

Between 2/ and 3/ something can race and think that it owns the
region. Do I think it will happen in practice, no, but it's still a
pattern that deserves come cleanup.