On Tue, Nov 02, 2021 at 03:15:15PM +0100, Petr Mladek wrote:
On Tue 2021-10-26 23:37:30, Ming Lei wrote:
On Tue, Oct 26, 2021 at 10:48:18AM +0200, Petr Mladek wrote:
Below are more details about the livepatch code. I hope that it will help you to see if zram has similar problems or not.
We have kobject in three structures: klp_func, klp_object, and klp_patch, see include/linux/livepatch.h.
These structures have to be statically defined in the module sources because they define what is livepatched, see samples/livepatch/livepatch-sample.c
The kobject is used there to show information about the patch, patched objects, and patched functions, in sysfs. And most importantly, the sysfs interface can be used to disable the livepatch.
The problem with static structures is that the module must stay in the memory as long as the sysfs interface exists. It can be solved in module_exit() callback. It could wait until the sysfs interface is destroyed.
kobject API does not support this scenario. The relase() callbacks
kobject_delete() is for supporting this scenario, that is why we don't need to grab module refcnt before calling show()/store() of the kobject's attributes.
kobject_delete() can be called in module_exit(), then any show()/store() will be done after kobject_delete() returns.
I am a bit confused. I do not see kobject_delete() anywhere in kernel sources.
I see only kobject_del() and kobject_put(). AFAIK, they do _not_ guarantee that either the sysfs interface was destroyed or the release callbacks were called. For example, see schedule_delayed_work(&kobj->release, delay) in kobject_release().
After kobject_del() returns, no one can call run into show()/store(), and all pending show()/store() are drained meantime. But yes, the release handler may still be called later, and the kobject has to be freed during or before module_exit().
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20211101112548.3364086-2-ming.lei@redhat.com/
By other words, anyone could still be using either the sysfs interface or the related structures after kobject_del() or kobject_put() returns.
No, no one can do that after kobject_del() returns.
IMHO, kobject API does not support static structures and module removal.
But so far klp_patch can only be defined as static instance, and it depends on the implementation, especially the release handler.
Thanks, Ming