tty: Fix low_latency BUG
authorPeter Hurley <peter@hurleysoftware.com>
Sat, 22 Feb 2014 12:31:21 +0000 (07:31 -0500)
committerGreg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Sat, 1 Mar 2014 00:31:00 +0000 (16:31 -0800)
The user-settable knob, low_latency, has been the source of
several BUG reports which stem from flush_to_ldisc() running
in interrupt context. Since 3.12, which added several sleeping
locks (termios_rwsem and buf->lock) to the input processing path,
the frequency of these BUG reports has increased.

Note that changes in 3.12 did not introduce this regression;
sleeping locks were first added to the input processing path
with the removal of the BKL from N_TTY in commit
a88a69c91256418c5907c2f1f8a0ec0a36f9e6cc,
'n_tty: Fix loss of echoed characters and remove bkl from n_tty'
and later in commit 38db89799bdf11625a831c5af33938dcb11908b6,
'tty: throttling race fix'. Since those changes, executing
flush_to_ldisc() in interrupt_context (ie, low_latency set), is unsafe.

However, since most devices do not validate if the low_latency
setting is appropriate for the context (process or interrupt) in
which they receive data, some reports are due to misconfiguration.
Further, serial dma devices for which dma fails, resort to
interrupt receiving as a backup without resetting low_latency.

Historically, low_latency was used to force wake-up the reading
process rather than wait for the next scheduler tick. The
effect was to trim multiple milliseconds of latency from
when the process would receive new data.

Recent tests [1] have shown that the reading process now receives
data with only 10's of microseconds latency without low_latency set.

Remove the low_latency rx steering from tty_flip_buffer_push();
however, leave the knob as an optional hint to drivers that can
tune their rx fifos and such like. Cleanup stale code comments
regarding low_latency.

[1] https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/2/20/434

"Yay.. thats an annoying historical pain in the butt gone."
-- Alan Cox

Reported-by: Beat Bolli <bbolli@ewanet.ch>
Reported-by: Pavel Roskin <proski@gnu.org>
Acked-by: David Sterba <dsterba@suse.cz>
Cc: Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com>
Cc: Stanislaw Gruszka <sgruszka@redhat.com>
Cc: Hal Murray <murray+fedora@ip-64-139-1-69.sjc.megapath.net>
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org> # 3.12.x+
Signed-off-by: Peter Hurley <peter@hurleysoftware.com>
Signed-off-by: Alan Cox <alan@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
drivers/tty/ipwireless/tty.c
drivers/tty/tty_buffer.c
drivers/usb/gadget/u_serial.c
include/linux/tty.h

index ebd5bff0f5c1668b70bdefead34bc60fca8a81ef..17ee3bf0926be1eb2f5ff61bdab4964dba8fa189 100644 (file)
@@ -176,9 +176,6 @@ void ipwireless_tty_received(struct ipw_tty *tty, unsigned char *data,
                                ": %d chars not inserted to flip buffer!\n",
                                length - work);
 
-       /*
-        * This may sleep if ->low_latency is set
-        */
        if (work)
                tty_flip_buffer_push(&tty->port);
 }
index 765125dff20e36f5d07e2db53646f83f66a223f7..8ebd9f88a6f69ff85f63139944fad2542c789483 100644 (file)
@@ -351,14 +351,11 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(tty_insert_flip_string_flags);
  *     Takes any pending buffers and transfers their ownership to the
  *     ldisc side of the queue. It then schedules those characters for
  *     processing by the line discipline.
- *     Note that this function can only be used when the low_latency flag
- *     is unset. Otherwise the workqueue won't be flushed.
  */
 
 void tty_schedule_flip(struct tty_port *port)
 {
        struct tty_bufhead *buf = &port->buf;
-       WARN_ON(port->low_latency);
 
        buf->tail->commit = buf->tail->used;
        schedule_work(&buf->work);
@@ -482,17 +479,15 @@ static void flush_to_ldisc(struct work_struct *work)
  */
 void tty_flush_to_ldisc(struct tty_struct *tty)
 {
-       if (!tty->port->low_latency)
-               flush_work(&tty->port->buf.work);
+       flush_work(&tty->port->buf.work);
 }
 
 /**
  *     tty_flip_buffer_push    -       terminal
  *     @port: tty port to push
  *
- *     Queue a push of the terminal flip buffers to the line discipline. This
- *     function must not be called from IRQ context if port->low_latency is
- *     set.
+ *     Queue a push of the terminal flip buffers to the line discipline.
+ *     Can be called from IRQ/atomic context.
  *
  *     In the event of the queue being busy for flipping the work will be
  *     held off and retried later.
@@ -500,14 +495,7 @@ void tty_flush_to_ldisc(struct tty_struct *tty)
 
 void tty_flip_buffer_push(struct tty_port *port)
 {
-       struct tty_bufhead *buf = &port->buf;
-
-       buf->tail->commit = buf->tail->used;
-
-       if (port->low_latency)
-               flush_to_ldisc(&buf->work);
-       else
-               schedule_work(&buf->work);
+       tty_schedule_flip(port);
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(tty_flip_buffer_push);
 
index b369292d4b90cd0c5c66dd147434f5d8aadbd752..ad0aca8120020f92f15186610790d073cdcc94b4 100644 (file)
@@ -549,8 +549,8 @@ static void gs_rx_push(unsigned long _port)
                port->read_started--;
        }
 
-       /* Push from tty to ldisc; without low_latency set this is handled by
-        * a workqueue, so we won't get callbacks and can hold port_lock
+       /* Push from tty to ldisc; this is handled by a workqueue,
+        * so we won't get callbacks and can hold port_lock
         */
        if (do_push)
                tty_flip_buffer_push(&port->port);
index 90b4fdc8a61f14fcd8753bc5d7d55d89924e9302..b90b5c221ff0dca677bfed63cb36a404f258ec4d 100644 (file)
@@ -208,7 +208,7 @@ struct tty_port {
        wait_queue_head_t       delta_msr_wait; /* Modem status change */
        unsigned long           flags;          /* TTY flags ASY_*/
        unsigned char           console:1,      /* port is a console */
-                               low_latency:1;  /* direct buffer flush */
+                               low_latency:1;  /* optional: tune for latency */
        struct mutex            mutex;          /* Locking */
        struct mutex            buf_mutex;      /* Buffer alloc lock */
        unsigned char           *xmit_buf;      /* Optional buffer */