Re: Possible hungtask issue will be introduced with device_lock() in uevent_show()

From: zhangzekun (A)
Date: Sun Jan 26 2025 - 22:27:18 EST



Hi Zekun,

If you have some cycles to help investigate the replacement fix that
would be much appreciated.

So far I came up with this:

http://lore.kernel.org/172790598832.1168608.4519484276671503678.stgit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

...but have not had time to debug the 0day report.

My worry is still that Linux has long since shipped the expectation that
reading 'uevent' bounces the device_lock() which, among other things,
makes sure that any in-flight driver probing has completed.

The report of USB devices disappearing is consistent with a udev
operation failing due to the driver not being done attaching, or
something similar.

So even though you have not seen any issues, I suspect small differences
in the devices on your system and the reporter's system, or udev rule
differences could result in a failure to trigger the regression.


Hi, Dan

The patch trys to prevent the potential dead lock by letting device_lock() gets before kernfs_get_active(), but I think it might not be enough to solve all the potential dead lock. The device_lock() will be held while removing the driver in device_release_driver(), which means will be held through driver's .remove(). If .remove() is waiting for resources to be released by userspace process, and then the userspace process call device_lock() in uevent_show(), we will have dead locks here.

In the following case:

device_release_driver
device_lock() blocked by
<operation 1> ---------------------------> <operation 2>
uevent_show()
device_lock()


In [1], It is beacause that pci_stop_and_remove_bus_device() will call device_release_driver() first and then call device_del() to remove the uevent sysfs attributes (Sorry for mistakes made in [1], device_release_driver() is called by pci_stop_bus_device()). So, I think it might not be a good idea to hold the device_lock() through uevent_show().

ioctl(..,VFIO_GROUP_GET_DEVICE_FD,..)
...
vfio_device_get_from_name()
vfio_devcie->refcount -> 2
pci_stop_and_remove_bus_device()
pci_stop_bus_device()
device_release_driver()
device_lock()
device_remove()
vfio_unregister_group_dev()
vfio_device_put_registration()
vfio_devcie->refcount -> 1
wait for refcount == 0
uevent_show()
device_lock()

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20241231075608.84009-1-zhangzekun11@xxxxxxxxxx/

Best Regards,
Zekun