Re: Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] Fix errors on DT overlay removal with devlinks

[Michael Auchter]

Hey Saravana,

Thanks for taking the time to look into this!

On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 12:10:33PM -0700, Saravana Kannan wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 2:02 PM Frank Rowand <frowand.list@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Saravana,
> >
> > Michael found an issue related to the removal of a devicetree node
> > which involves devlinks:
> >
> > On 10/14/20 2:36 PM, Michael Auchter wrote:
> > > After updating to v5.9, I've started seeing errors in the kernel log
> > > when using device tree overlays. Specifically, the problem seems to
> > > happen when removing a device tree overlay that contains two devices
> > > with some dependency between them (e.g., a device that provides a clock
> > > and a device that consumes that clock). Removing such an overlay results
> > > in:
> > >
> > >   OF: ERROR: memory leak, expected refcount 1 instead of 2, of_node_get()/of_node_put() unbalanced - destroy
> > >   OF: ERROR: memory leak, expected refcount 1 instead of 2, of_node_get()/of_node_put() unbalanced - destroy
> > >
> > > followed by hitting some REFCOUNT_WARNs in refcount.c
> > >
> > > In the first patch, I've included a unittest that can be used to
> > > reproduce this when built with CONFIG_OF_UNITTEST [1].
> > >
> > > I believe the issue is caused by the cleanup performed when releasing
> > > the devlink device that's created to represent the dependency between
> > > devices. The devlink device has references to the consumer and supplier
> > > devices, which it drops in device_link_free; the devlink device's
> > > release callback calls device_link_free via call_srcu.
> > >
> > > When the overlay is being removed, all devices are removed, and
> > > eventually the release callback for the devlink device run, and
> > > schedules cleanup using call_srcu. Before device_link_free can and call
> > > put_device on the consumer/supplier, the rest of the overlay removal
> > > process runs, resulting in the error traces above.
> >
> > When a devicetree node in an overlay is removed, the remove code expects
> > all previous users of the related device to have done the appropriate put
> > of the device and to have no later references.
> >
> > As Michael described above, the devlink release callback defers the
> > put_device().  The cleanup via srcu was implemented in commit
> > 843e600b8a2b01463c4d873a90b2c2ea8033f1f6 "driver core: Fix sleeping
> > in invalid context during device link deletion" to solve yet another
> > issue.
> >
> >
> > >
> > > Patches 2 and 3 are an attempt at fixing this: call srcu_barrier to wait
> > > for any pending device_link_free's to execute before continuing on with
> > > the removal process.
> > >
> > > These patches resolve the issue, but probably not in the best way. In
> > > particular, it seems strange to need to leak details of devlinks into
> > > the device tree overlay code. So, I'd be curious to get some feedback or
> > > hear any other ideas for how to resolve this issue.
> >
> > I agree with Michael that adding an indirect call of srcu_barrier(&device_links_srcu)
> > into the devicetree overlay code is not an appropriate solution.
> 
> I kind of see your point too. I wonder if the srcu_barrier() should
> happen inside like so:
> device_del() -> device_links_purge()->srcu_barrier()
> 
> I don't know what contention the use of SRCUs in device links was
> trying to avoid, but I think the srcu_barrier() call path I suggested
> above shouldn't be a problem. If that fixes the issue, the best way to
> know if it's an issue is to send out a patch and see if Rafael has any
> problem with it :)

I was able to test this by adding the srcu_barrier() at the end of
device_links_purge(), and that does seem to have fixed the issue.

> > Is there some other way to fix the problem that 843e600b8a2b solves without
> > deferring the put_device() done by the devlink release callback?
> 
> Ok I finally got some time to look into this closely.
> 
> Even if you revert 843e600b8a2b, you'll see that device_link_free()
> (which drops the reference to the consumer and supplier devices) was
> scheduled to run when the SRCU clean up occurs. So I think this issue
> was present even before 843e600b8a2b, but commit 843e600b8a2b just
> made it more likely to hit this scenario because it introduces some
> delay in dropping the ref count of the supplier and consumer by going
> through the device link device's release path. So, I think this issue
> isn't related to 843e600b8a2b.
> 
> As to why 843e600b8a2b had to be written to call call_srcu() from the
> device link device's release path, it's a mess of dependencies/delays:
> 1. The device link device is part of the struct device_link. So we
> can't free device_link before the device_link.link_dev refcount goes
> to 0.
> 2. But I can't assume device_link.link_dev's refcount will go to 0 as
> soon as I call put_device() on it because of
> CONFIG_DEBUG_KOBJECT_RELEASE which frees up the kobject after a random
> delay.
> 3. The use of SRCU also means I can't free device_link until the SRCU
> is cleaned up.
> 
> Because of (1), (2) and (3), when the device_link_del() (or any of the
> other device link deletion APIs are called) I first have to do a
> put_device(device_link.link_dev) to make sure the device memory is no
> longer referenced, then trigger an SRCU clean up and then in the
> scheduled SRCU cleanup I can free struct device_link. And obviously,
> until struct device_link is ready to be freed up, I can't drop the
> reference to the supplier and consumer devices (as that old copy of
> device_link could be used by some code to refer to the supplier and
> consumer devices).
> 
> Hope that helps explain the SRCU and device link device release dependencies.
> 
> Also, even if this patch series is applied as is, I wonder if the
> current overlay code has a bug related to CONFIG_DEBUG_KOBJECT_RELEASE
> delaying the actual freeing of the device. Something to look into?

I also tried enabling CONFIG_DEBUG_KOBJECT_RELEASE... with or without
the addition of srcu_barrier() to device_links_purge(), I can't boot
successfully when CONFIG_OF_UNITTEST=y &&
CONFIG_DEBUG_KOBJECT_RELEASE=y: there are a ton of errors that result
from this combo.

Disabling the unittests and booting with CONFIG_DEBUG_KOBJECT_RELEASE=y,
I _do_ still see the errors mentioned in my original message when
removing an overlay. So yeah, it does seem like there are some latent
issues here...

Cheers,
 Michael