Re: [PATCH v2 3/5] nvme-fabrics: introduce ref counting for nvmf_ctrl_options

[Sagi Grimberg]

On 21/02/2024 15:24, Daniel Wagner wrote:
> The FC transport is offloading the connect attempt to a workqueue. When
> the attempt fails the transport is starting to cleanup resources. It is
> possible for user space to trigger a crash because nvmf_ctrl_options are
> exposed to sysfs.
>
> This crash wasn't observed with blktests nvme/041 until now because the
> retry loop was usually trying for several times (e.g. with defaults
> 600s) and the test would trigger the cleanup itself. Though we the
> recent change not retrying to use invalid credentials the crash can be
> easily triggered.
>
> The simplest way to control the life time of nvmf_ctrl_options is by
> using ref counting.

Why do we need a refcount for an object that has the same exact lifetime
as the ctrl itself? It just feels like unneeded complication.