Re: [PATCH] serial: xilinx_uartps: Fix race condition causing stuck TX

[Michal Simek]

On 10/26/21 12:27, Anssi Hannula wrote:
> xilinx_uartps .start_tx() clears TXEMPTY when enabling TXEMPTY to avoid
> any previous TXEVENT event asserting the UART interrupt. This clear
> operation is done immediately after filling the TX FIFO.
>
> However, if the bytes inserted by cdns_uart_handle_tx() are consumed by
> the UART before the TXEMPTY is cleared, the clear operation eats the new
> TXEMPTY event as well, causing cdns_uart_isr() to never receive the
> TXEMPTY event. If there are bytes still queued in circbuf, TX will get
> stuck as they will never get transferred to FIFO (unless new bytes are
> queued to circbuf in which case .start_tx() is called again).
>
> While the racy missed TXEMPTY occurs fairly often with short data
> sequences (e.g. write 1 byte), in those cases circbuf is usually empty
> so no action on TXEMPTY would have been needed anyway. On the other
> hand, longer data sequences make the race much more unlikely as UART
> takes longer to consume the TX FIFO. Therefore it is rare for this race
> to cause visible issues in general.
>
> Fix the race by clearing the TXEMPTY bit in ISR *before* filling the
> FIFO.
>
> The TXEMPTY bit in ISR will only get asserted at the exact moment the
> TX FIFO *becomes* empty, so clearing the bit before filling FIFO does
> not cause an extra immediate assertion even if the FIFO is initially
> empty.
>
> This is hard to reproduce directly on a normal system, but inserting
> e.g. udelay(200) after cdns_uart_handle_tx(port), setting 4000000 baud,
> and then running "dd if=/dev/zero bs=128 of=/dev/ttyPS0 count=50"
> reliably reproduces the issue on my ZynqMP test system unless this fix
> is applied.
>
> Fixes: 85baf542d54e ("tty: xuartps: support 64 byte FIFO size")
> Signed-off-by: Anssi Hannula <anssi.hannula@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>   drivers/tty/serial/xilinx_uartps.c | 3 ++-
>   1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/drivers/tty/serial/xilinx_uartps.c b/drivers/tty/serial/xilinx_uartps.c
> index 962e522ccc45..d5e243908d9f 100644
> --- a/drivers/tty/serial/xilinx_uartps.c
> +++ b/drivers/tty/serial/xilinx_uartps.c
> @@ -601,9 +601,10 @@ static void cdns_uart_start_tx(struct uart_port *port)
>   	if (uart_circ_empty(&port->state->xmit))
>   		return;
>   
> +	writel(CDNS_UART_IXR_TXEMPTY, port->membase + CDNS_UART_ISR);
> +
>   	cdns_uart_handle_tx(port);
>   
> -	writel(CDNS_UART_IXR_TXEMPTY, port->membase + CDNS_UART_ISR);
>   	/* Enable the TX Empty interrupt */
>   	writel(CDNS_UART_IXR_TXEMPTY, port->membase + CDNS_UART_IER);
>   }

Shubhrajyoti: Can you please take a look at this one?

Thanks,
Michal