net: Fix netdev_run_todo dead-lock

Benjamin Thery tracked down a bug that explains many instances
of the error

unregister_netdevice: waiting for %s to become free. Usage count = %d

It turns out that netdev_run_todo can dead-lock with itself if
a second instance of it is run in a thread that will then free
a reference to the device waited on by the first instance.

The problem is really quite silly.  We were trying to create
parallelism where none was required.  As netdev_run_todo always
follows a RTNL section, and that todo tasks can only be added
with the RTNL held, by definition you should only need to wait
for the very ones that you've added and be done with it.

There is no need for a second mutex or spinlock.

This is exactly what the following patch does.

Signed-off-by: Herbert Xu <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
This commit is contained in:
Herbert Xu
2008-10-07 15:50:03 -07:00
committed by David S. Miller
parent 742201e7ba
commit 58ec3b4db9
2 changed files with 7 additions and 22 deletions

View File

@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ void __rtnl_unlock(void)
void rtnl_unlock(void)
{
mutex_unlock(&rtnl_mutex);
/* This fellow will unlock it for us. */
netdev_run_todo();
}