[PATCH 2/3] ath9k: Fix potential interrupt storm on queue reset

From: Linus Lüssing
Date: Tue Sep 14 2021 - 15:33:43 EST


From: Linus Lüssing <ll@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

In tests with two Lima boards from 8devices (QCA4531 based) on OpenWrt
19.07 we could force a silent restart of a device with no serial
output when we were sending a high amount of UDP traffic (iperf3 at 80
MBit/s in both directions from external hosts, saturating the wifi and
causing a load of about 4.5 to 6) and were then triggering an
ath9k_queue_reset().

Further debugging showed that the restart was caused by the ath79
watchdog. With disabled watchdog we could observe that the device was
constantly going into ath_isr() interrupt handler and was returning
early after the ATH_OP_HW_RESET flag test, without clearing any
interrupts. Even though ath9k_queue_reset() calls
ath9k_hw_kill_interrupts().

With JTAG we could observe the following race condition:

1) ath9k_queue_reset()
...
-> ath9k_hw_kill_interrupts()
-> set_bit(ATH_OP_HW_RESET, &common->op_flags);
...
<- returns

2) ath9k_tasklet()
...
-> ath9k_hw_resume_interrupts()
...
<- returns

3) loops around:
...
handle_int()
-> ath_isr()
...
-> if (test_bit(ATH_OP_HW_RESET,
&common->op_flags))
return IRQ_HANDLED;

x) ath_reset_internal():
=> never reached <=

And in ath_isr() we would typically see the following interrupts /
interrupt causes:

* status: 0x00111030 or 0x00110030
* async_cause: 2 (AR_INTR_MAC_IPQ)
* sync_cause: 0

So the ath9k_tasklet() reenables the ath9k interrupts
through ath9k_hw_resume_interrupts() which ath9k_queue_reset() had just
disabled. And ath_isr() then keeps firing because it returns IRQ_HANDLED
without actually clearing the interrupt.

To fix this IRQ storm also clear/disable the interrupts again when we
are in reset state.

Cc: Sven Eckelmann <sven@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Simon Wunderlich <sw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Linus Lüssing <linus.luessing@xxxxxxxxx>
Fixes: 872b5d814f99 ("ath9k: do not access hardware on IRQs during reset")
Signed-off-by: Linus Lüssing <ll@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/main.c | 4 +++-
1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/main.c b/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/main.c
index 139831539da3..98090e40e1cf 100644
--- a/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/main.c
+++ b/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/main.c
@@ -533,8 +533,10 @@ irqreturn_t ath_isr(int irq, void *dev)
ath9k_debug_sync_cause(sc, sync_cause);
status &= ah->imask; /* discard unasked-for bits */

- if (test_bit(ATH_OP_HW_RESET, &common->op_flags))
+ if (test_bit(ATH_OP_HW_RESET, &common->op_flags)) {
+ ath9k_hw_kill_interrupts(sc->sc_ah);
return IRQ_HANDLED;
+ }

/*
* If there are no status bits set, then this interrupt was not
--
2.31.0