mirror of https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>
To: Arkadiusz Miskiewicz <a.miskiewicz@gmail.com>
Cc: Wim Van Sebroeck <wim@iguana.be>,
	linux-watchdog@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: 3.8.3 and 3.9git occasional watchdog oops
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 20:47:50 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20130406034750.GA25339@roeck-us.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20130405015959.GA2566@roeck-us.net>

On Thu, Apr 04, 2013 at 06:59:59PM -0700, Guenter Roeck wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 05, 2013 at 12:23:30AM +0200, Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
> > On Thursday 14 of March 2013, Arkadiusz Miśkiewicz wrote:
> > > Hi.
> > > 
> > > Just hit watchdog related oops in 3.8.3 kernel. Unfortunately photos only.
> > > 
> > > http://ixion.pld-linux.org/~arekm/watchdog-oops-3.8.3/IMG_8942.JPG
> > > http://ixion.pld-linux.org/~arekm/watchdog-oops-3.8.3/IMG_8941.JPG
> > 
> > 3.9git from today isn't any better unfortunately:
> > 
> > http://ixion.pld-linux.org/~arekm/watchdog-oops-3.9git.jpg
> > 
> > > 
> > > oops started after I enabled systemd watchdog functionality. Cannot
> > > reproduce easily.
> > > 
> > > watchdog here (thinkpad t400) is:
> > >  iTCO_wdt: Found a ICH9M-E TCO device (Version=2, TCOBASE=0x1060)
> > 
> > 
> Wonder if there is a race condition in the watchdog driver: The watchdog device
> is opened before watchdog_register_device returns. I suspect systemd waits for
> a udev event, or by some other means detects that /dev/watchdog was created,
> and opens it immediately.
> 
> I just have no idea where exactly the race condition, if there is one, is
> hiding. Or maybe I am completely off track.
> 
I _think_ I understand the sequence of events.

- The driver is the first watchdog driver to register.
- watchdog_dev_register() gets called and creates the watchdog misc device
  by calling misc_register().
  At that time, the matching character device (/dev/watchdog0) does not yet
  exist, and old_wdd is not set either.
- Userspace gets an event and opens /dev/watchdog
- watchdog_open() is called and sets sets wdd = old_wdd, which is still NULL,
  and tries to dereference it. Bang.

If this is the problem, a simple fix would be to set old_wdd before calling
misc_register().

Can you test a patch ?

Guenter

      reply	other threads:[~2013-04-06  3:47 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
     [not found] <201303142154.20501.arekm@maven.pl>
2013-04-04 22:23 ` Arkadiusz Miskiewicz
2013-04-05  1:59   ` Guenter Roeck
2013-04-06  3:47     ` Guenter Roeck [this message]

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=20130406034750.GA25339@roeck-us.net \
    --to=linux@roeck-us.net \
    --cc=a.miskiewicz@gmail.com \
    --cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=linux-watchdog@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=wim@iguana.be \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox

Powered by JetHome