Re: [PATCH net v3 3/3] net: ti: icss-iep: Fix possible NULL pointer dereference for perout request

[Paolo Abeni]

On 4/2/25 2:37 PM, Malladi, Meghana wrote:
> On 4/2/2025 5:58 PM, Roger Quadros wrote:
>> On 28/03/2025 12:24, Meghana Malladi wrote:
>>> ICSS IEP driver has flags to check if perout or pps has been enabled
>>> at any given point of time. Whenever there is request to enable or
>>> disable the signal, the driver first checks its enabled or disabled
>>> and acts accordingly.
>>>
>>> After bringing the interface down and up, calling PPS/perout enable
>>> doesn't work as the driver believes PPS is already enabled,
>>
>> How? aren't we calling icss_iep_pps_enable(iep, false)?
>> wouldn't this disable the IEP and clear the iep->pps_enabled flag?
>>
> 
> The whole purpose of calling icss_iep_pps_enable(iep, false) is to clear 
> iep->pps_enabled flag, because if this flag is not cleared it hinders 
> generating new pps signal (with the newly loaded firmware) once any of 
> the interfaces are up (check icss_iep_perout_enable()), so instead of 
> calling icss_iep_pps_enable(iep, false) I am just clearing the 
> iep->pps_enabled flag.

IDK what Roger thinks, but the above is not clear to me. I read it as
you are stating that icss_iep_pps_enable() indeed clears the flag, so i
don't see/follow the reasoning behind this change.

Skimmir over the code, icss_iep_pps_enable() could indeed avoid clearing
the flag under some circumstances is that the reason?

Possibly a more describing commit message would help.

>> And, what if you brought 2 interfaces of the same ICSS instances up
>> but put only 1 interface down and up?
>>
> 
> Then the flag need not be disabled if only one interface is brought down 
> because the IEP is still alive and all the IEP configuration (including 
> pps/perout) is still valid.

I read the above as stating this fix is not correct in such scenario,
leading to the wrong final state.

I think it would be better to either give a better reasoning about this
change in the commit message or refactor it to handle even such scenario,

Thanks,

Paolo