linux/drivers
Linus Torvalds 65b770468e tty-ldisc: turn ldisc user count into a proper refcount
By using the user count for the actual lifetime rules, we can get rid of
the silly "wait_for_idle" logic, because any busy ldisc will
automatically stay around until the last user releases it.  This avoids
a host of odd issues, and simplifies the code.

So now, when the last ldisc reference is dropped, we just release the
ldisc operations struct reference, and free the ldisc.

It looks obvious enough, and it does work for me, but the counting
_could_ be off. It probably isn't (bad counting in the new version would
generally imply that the old code did something really bad, like free an
ldisc with a non-zero count), but it does need some testing, and
preferably somebody looking at it.

With this change, both 'tty_ldisc_put()' and 'tty_ldisc_deref()' are
just aliases for the new ref-counting 'put_ldisc()'. Both of them
decrement the ldisc user count and free it if it goes down to zero.
They're identical functions, in other words.

But the reason they still exist as sepate functions is that one of them
was exported (tty_ldisc_deref) and had a stupid name (so I don't want to
use it as the main name), and the other one was used in multiple places
(and I didn't want to make the patch larger just to rename the users).

In addition to the refcounting, I did do some minimal cleanup. For
example, now "tty_ldisc_try()" actually returns the ldisc it got under
the lock, rather than returning true/false and then the caller would
look up the ldisc again (now without the protection of the lock).

That said, there's tons of dubious use of 'tty->ldisc' without obviously
proper locking or refcounting left. I expressly did _not_ want to try to
fix it all, keeping the patch minimal. There may or may not be bugs in
that kind of code, but they wouldn't be _new_ bugs.

That said, even if the bugs aren't new, the timing and lifetime will
change. For example, some silly code may depend on the 'tty->ldisc'
pointer not changing because they hold a refcount on the 'ldisc'. And
that's no longer true - if you hold a ref on the ldisc, the 'ldisc'
itself is safe, but tty->ldisc may change.

So the proper locking (remains) to hold tty->ldisc_mutex if you expect
tty->ldisc to be stable. That's not really a _new_ rule, but it's an
example of something that the old code might have unintentionally
depended on and hidden bugs.

Whatever. The patch _looks_ sensible to me. The only users of
ldisc->users are:
 - get_ldisc() - atomically increment the count

 - put_ldisc() - atomically decrements the count and releases if zero

 - tty_ldisc_try_get() - creates the ldisc, and sets the count to 1.
   The ldisc should then either be released, or be attached to a tty.

Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Tested-by: OGAWA Hirofumi <hirofumi@mail.parknet.co.jp>
Tested-by: Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky@mail.by>
Acked-by: Alan Cox <alan@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
2009-08-04 13:46:30 -07:00
..
accessibility
acpi Merge branch 'misc-2.6.31' into release 2009-08-02 12:55:51 -04:00
amba
ata libata: accept late unlocking of HPA 2009-07-28 21:07:09 -04:00
atm
auxdisplay
base driver core: sysdev: do not send KOBJ_ADD uevent if kobject_init_and_add fails 2009-07-28 13:45:22 -07:00
block mg_disk: Add missing ready status check on mg_write() 2009-07-28 08:57:33 +02:00
bluetooth headers: smp_lock.h redux 2009-07-12 12:22:34 -07:00
cdrom
char tty-ldisc: turn ldisc user count into a proper refcount 2009-08-04 13:46:30 -07:00
clocksource
connector connector: maintainer/mail update. 2009-07-21 12:43:51 -07:00
cpufreq
cpuidle
crypto
dca
dio
dma Merge branch 'next' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/djbw/async_tx 2009-07-30 16:46:31 -07:00
edac edac: x38 fix mchbar high register addr 2009-07-29 19:10:34 -07:00
eisa
firewire
firmware
gpio headers: smp_lock.h redux 2009-07-12 12:22:34 -07:00
gpu Merge branch 'drm-radeon-kms' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/airlied/drm-2.6 2009-07-29 12:31:59 -07:00
hid Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/hid 2009-07-22 09:30:07 -07:00
hwmon hwmon: (asus_atk0110) Fix upper limit readings 2009-07-28 16:31:39 +02:00
i2c i2c-omap: OMAP3430 Silicon Errata 1.153 2009-07-30 01:03:24 +01:00
ide ide-tape: Don't leak kernel stack information 2009-07-21 20:36:25 -07:00
idle
ieee1394
ieee802154
infiniband
input Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/dtor/input 2009-07-22 09:25:31 -07:00
isdn mISDN: Fix handling of receive buffer size in L1oIP 2009-07-28 14:26:51 -07:00
leds
lguest lguest and virtio: cleanup struct definitions to Linux style. 2009-07-30 16:03:46 +09:30
macintosh
mca
md md: Use revalidate_disk to effect changes in size of device. 2009-08-03 10:59:58 +10:00
media V4L/DVB (12303): cx23885: check pointers before dereferencing in dprintk macro 2009-07-24 14:03:32 -03:00
memstick
message
mfd
misc cb710: use SG_MITER_TO_SG/SG_MITER_FROM_SG 2009-07-31 12:28:46 +02:00
mmc imxmmc: Remove unnecessary semicolons 2009-07-31 12:28:46 +02:00
mtd UBI: fix bug in image sequence number handling 2009-07-15 11:30:59 +03:00
net Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net-2.6 2009-07-27 13:42:47 -07:00
nubus
of of/mdio: Add support function for Ethernet fixed-link property 2009-07-22 09:27:18 -07:00
oprofile oprofile: reset bt_lost_no_mapping with other stats 2009-07-10 12:35:36 +02:00
parisc
parport
pci Make pci_claim_resource() use request_resource() rather than insert_resource() 2009-08-02 14:10:18 -07:00
pcmcia
platform Merge branch 'bugzilla-13825' into release 2009-08-02 12:36:01 -04:00
pnp
power Merge git://git.infradead.org/users/cbou/battery-2.6.31 2009-07-30 16:45:53 -07:00
pps
ps3
rapidio
regulator
rtc rtc: mark if rtc-cmos drivers were successfully registered 2009-07-29 19:10:35 -07:00
s390 [S390] zcrypt: fix scheduling of hrtimer ap_poll_timer 2009-07-24 12:41:02 +02:00
sbus
scsi headers: smp_lock.h redux 2009-07-12 12:22:34 -07:00
serial Merge branch 'merge' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/benh/powerpc 2009-07-30 16:45:20 -07:00
sh
sn
spi spi: omap2_mcspi rxdma bugfix 2009-07-29 19:10:35 -07:00
ssb
staging staging: udlfb: Add vmalloc.h include 2009-07-28 14:07:11 -07:00
tc
telephony headers: smp_lock.h redux 2009-07-12 12:22:34 -07:00
thermal
uio
usb USB: xhci: Stall handling bug fixes. 2009-07-28 14:31:13 -07:00
uwb
video drivers/video/backlight/jornada720_bl.c: fix build 2009-07-29 19:10:35 -07:00
virtio virtio: refactor find_vqs 2009-07-30 16:03:45 +09:30
vlynq
w1
watchdog [WATCHDOG] Fix COH 901 327 watchdog enablement 2009-08-02 19:56:30 +00:00
xen
zorro
Kconfig
Makefile