[PATCH 1/7] char: xillybus: Improve control of execution flow with mutexes

From: Eli Billauer

Date: Tue Jun 30 2026 - 05:28:11 EST


This commit addresses two issues by using mutexes:

(1) Add a mutex to protect the fifo_buf_order global variable. The
purpose of this variable is avoid repeated failed calls to
__get_free_pages() for allocating FIFO memory, when the chunk
size was too big. However, if two drivers are initialized at the
same time, fifo_init() may run in parallel, and fifo_buf_order
may be reduced too much. This is a far-fetched scenario, now
completely prevented by fifo_buf_order_mutex.

(2) setup_channels() acquires process_in_mutex to prevent
process_bulk_in() from accessing the xillyusb_dev struct. With
correctly working hardware, process_bulk_in() is never called while
setup_channels() runs, because the device has no reason to send data
in that phase. The mutex ensures that process_bulk_in() does not
touch the members that setup_channels() alters.

There is no similar protection for data flow in the other direction,
because during the setup process, the only outbound data is the
BULK endpoint used for commands, and it remains untouched after its
initial setup.

Signed-off-by: Eli Billauer <eli.billauer@xxxxxxxxx>
---
drivers/char/xillybus/xillyusb.c | 6 ++++++
1 file changed, 6 insertions(+)

diff --git a/drivers/char/xillybus/xillyusb.c b/drivers/char/xillybus/xillyusb.c
index 34e7ad3bcab3..a28e6416cb01 100644
--- a/drivers/char/xillybus/xillyusb.c
+++ b/drivers/char/xillybus/xillyusb.c
@@ -50,6 +50,7 @@ MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2");
static const char xillyname[] = "xillyusb";

static unsigned int fifo_buf_order;
+static DEFINE_MUTEX(fifo_buf_order_mutex);
static struct workqueue_struct *wakeup_wq;

#define USB_VENDOR_ID_XILINX 0x03fd
@@ -375,6 +376,8 @@ static int fifo_init(struct xillyfifo *fifo,

unsigned int log2_fifo_buf_size;

+ guard(mutex)(&fifo_buf_order_mutex);
+
retry:
log2_fifo_buf_size = fifo_buf_order + PAGE_SHIFT;

@@ -1943,6 +1946,9 @@ static int setup_channels(struct xillyusb_dev *xdev,
struct xillyusb_channel *chan, *new_channels;
int i;

+ /* Don't let process_bulk_in() run while we change the channels */
+ guard(mutex)(&xdev->process_in_mutex);
+
chan = kzalloc_objs(*chan, num_channels);
if (!chan)
return -ENOMEM;
--
2.34.1