Re: [PATCH] console close race fix resend

[Andrew Morton]

Robert Love wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 2001-12-10 at 22:16, Gordon Oliver wrote:
> 
> > and (c) appears to still have a race... You should extract
> > the value from the structure inside the lock, otherwise you
> > will still race with con_close (though perhaps a smaller race)
> > but since the call to acquire_console_sem() can sleep, the
> > vt handle you have may be stale.
> 
> Ehh, I don't think so.  Here is the whole patched function:
> 
> static void con_flush_chars(struct tty_struct *tty)
> {
>         struct vt_struct *vt = (struct vt_struct *)tty->driver_data;
>         if (in_interrupt())     /* from flush_to_ldisc */
>                 return;
>         pm_access(pm_con);
>         acquire_console_sem();
>         if (vt)
>                 set_cursor(vt->vc_num);
>         release_console_sem();
> }
> 

It could be improved - we really should test tty->driver_data inside
lock_kernel(), and after the possible sleep.

How does this look (and how does it test?)

--- linux-2.4.17-pre8/drivers/char/console.c	Mon Dec 10 13:46:20 2001
+++ linux-akpm/drivers/char/console.c	Mon Dec 10 22:27:05 2001
@@ -100,6 +100,7 @@
 #include <linux/tqueue.h>
 #include <linux/bootmem.h>
 #include <linux/pm.h>
+#include <linux/smp_lock.h>
 
 #include <asm/io.h>
 #include <asm/system.h>
@@ -2350,15 +2351,18 @@ static void con_start(struct tty_struct 
 
 static void con_flush_chars(struct tty_struct *tty)
 {
-	struct vt_struct *vt = (struct vt_struct *)tty->driver_data;
+	struct vt_struct *vt;
 
 	if (in_interrupt())	/* from flush_to_ldisc */
 		return;
-
 	pm_access(pm_con);
+	lock_kernel();		/* versus con_close() */
 	acquire_console_sem();
-	set_cursor(vt->vc_num);
+	vt = (struct vt_struct *)tty->driver_data;
+	if (vt)
+		set_cursor(vt->vc_num);
 	release_console_sem();
+	unlock_kernel();
 }
 
 /*