Re: [PATCH] platform/x86: dell-smo8800: keep the state until the last file is closed

[Chad Aldreda]

On Tue, 10 Nov 2026, Pali Rohár wrote:
> Hello, I have not checked this patch too deeply, but I have feeling that
> something is probably wrong if we need to add a new manual refcounter
> around a whole device.

Fair question. The count covers only the lifetime of struct
smo8800_device: one reference while the driver is bound and one per
open /dev/freefall file. It is needed because the struct comes from
devm_kzalloc(), which frees it when the driver unbinds, while a file
opened before the unbind stays open and still reaches it through
file->private_data.

> Anyway, this freefall logic was originally copied from the lis3lv02d.c
> driver, which now lives in the file:
> linux/drivers/misc/lis3lv02d/lis3lv02d.c
> So if in the freefall device of dell-smo8800.c is some error then
> probably the same issue would be in the freefall device of lis3lv02d.c.

Thanks for the pointer. lis3lv02d does not have this use-after-free: its
freefall state is the static global lis3_dev, which is never freed, and
its file operations reach it through the miscdevice embedded there. It
does share the other half: a read() blocked at remove is not woken there
either, but with static state that only leaves the reader asleep until a
signal, without touching freed memory.

Making smo8800_device static like lis3_dev would also fix the
use-after-free. I kept it per device because with static state a file
left open across an unbind and bind keeps the device marked open, so new
opens get -EBUSY until it is closed, and the old file sees the new
binding's events, as in lis3lv02d. Either way I would keep the wakeup
at remove, so that a blocked read() returns -ENODEV instead of sleeping
until a signal. If you prefer the static version, I can send a v2 doing
that.

Chad

This reply was drafted with an AI assistant (Claude Opus 5.5).