The i915_vblank_swap() function schedules an automatic buffer swap
upon receipt of the vertical sync interrupt. Such an operation is
lengthy so it can't be allowed to happen in normal interrupt context,
thus the DRM implements this by scheduling the work in a kernel
softirq-scheduled tasklet. In order for the buffer swap to work
safely, the DRM's central lock must be taken, via a call to
drm_lock_take() located in drivers/char/drm/drm_irq.c within the
function drm_locked_tasklet_func(). The lock-taking logic uses a
non-interrupt-blocking spinlock to implement the manipulations needed
to take the lock. This semantic would be safe if all attempts to use
the spinlock only happen from process context. However this buffer
swap happens from softirq context which is really a form of interrupt
context. Thus we have an unsafe situation, in that
drm_locked_tasklet_func() can block on a spinlock already taken by a
thread in process context which will never get scheduled again because
of the blocked softirq tasklet. This wedges the kernel hard.
To trigger this bug, run a dual-head cloned mode configuration which
uses the i915 drm, then execute an opengl application which
synchronizes buffer swaps against the vertical sync interrupt. In my
testing, a lockup always results after running anywhere from 5 minutes
to an hour and a half. I believe dual-head is needed to really
trigger the problem because then the vertical sync interrupt handling
is no longer predictable (due to being interrupt-sourced from two
different heads running at different speeds). This raises the
probability of the tasklet trying to run while the userspace DRI is
doing things to the GPU (and manipulating the DRM lock).
The fix is to change the relevant spinlock semantics to be the
interrupt-blocking form. After this change I am no longer able to
trigger the lockup; the longest test run so far was 20 hours (test
stopped after that point).
Note: I have examined the places where this spinlock is being
employed; all are reasonably short bounded sequences and should be
suitable for interrupts being blocked without impacting overall kernel
interrupt response latency.
Signed-off-by: Mike Isely <isely@pobox.com>
Signed-off-by: Dave Airlie <airlied@redhat.com>
************************************************************
* For the very latest on DRI development, please see: *
* http://dri.freedesktop.org/ *
************************************************************
The Direct Rendering Manager (drm) is a device-independent kernel-level
device driver that provides support for the XFree86 Direct Rendering
Infrastructure (DRI).
The DRM supports the Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI) in four major
ways:
1. The DRM provides synchronized access to the graphics hardware via
the use of an optimized two-tiered lock.
2. The DRM enforces the DRI security policy for access to the graphics
hardware by only allowing authenticated X11 clients access to
restricted regions of memory.
3. The DRM provides a generic DMA engine, complete with multiple
queues and the ability to detect the need for an OpenGL context
switch.
4. The DRM is extensible via the use of small device-specific modules
that rely extensively on the API exported by the DRM module.
Documentation on the DRI is available from:
http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/Documentation
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=387
http://dri.sourceforge.net/doc/
For specific information about kernel-level support, see:
The Direct Rendering Manager, Kernel Support for the Direct Rendering
Infrastructure
http://dri.sourceforge.net/doc/drm_low_level.html
Hardware Locking for the Direct Rendering Infrastructure
http://dri.sourceforge.net/doc/hardware_locking_low_level.html
A Security Analysis of the Direct Rendering Infrastructure
http://dri.sourceforge.net/doc/security_low_level.html
9df5808cca