[PATCH] mtd: cfi_cmdset_0002: Support Persistent Protection Bits (PPB) locking

[Stefan Roese]

On 12/10/2012 04:00 PM, Artem Bityutskiy wrote:
> On Fri, 2012-12-07 at 08:22 +0100, Stefan Roese wrote:
>> +       /*
>> +        * Wait for some time as unlocking of all sectors takes quite long
>> +        */
>> +       timeo = jiffies + (2 * HZ);     /* 2s max (un)locking */
> 
> Please, use msecs_to_jiffies() instead.

Sure, thats better.

>> +       for (;;) {
>> +               if (chip_ready(map, adr))
>> +                       break;
>> +
>> +               if (time_after(jiffies, timeo)) {
>> +                       printk(KERN_ERR "Waiting for chip to be ready timed out.\n");
>> +                       ret = -EIO;
>> +                       break;
>> +               }
>> +               mutex_unlock(&chip->mutex);
>> +               cfi_udelay(1);
>> +               mutex_lock(&chip->mutex);
>> +       } 
> 
> Would you please educate me a bit and explain what is protected by
> 'chip->mutex' and by 'get_chip()'.

AFAIK, chip->mutex protects the access to the chip itself. So that
sequences are not interrupted.

I have to admit that I haven't looked into get_chip() so far. It seems
to handle a state machine. Normally (idle state) it will just fall
through (FL_READY).

> Why you need to drop the mutex here?

Not sure, that might not be necessary. Copy and past from another loop
in the same file.

> Why is it not an ABBA deadlock to do this:
> 
> Task 1: In the loop above, has chip locked, doing
>         mutex_lock(&chip->mutex);
> 
> Task 2: done mutex_lock(&chip->mutex), now doing
>         ret = get_chip(map, chip, adr + chip->start, FL_LOCKING);

I don't see two different locks/mutexes (only A) here. As get_chip()
does no request any real mutex. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

In many other places UDELAY() is called:

#define UDELAY(map, chip, adr, usec)  \
do {  \
	mutex_unlock(&chip->mutex);  \
	cfi_udelay(usec);  \
	mutex_lock(&chip->mutex);  \
} while (0)

So dropping this lock seems to be quite common in this driver.

Thanks,
Stefan