[linux-dvb] [PATCH] budget_av / dvb_ca_en50221: fixes ci/cam handling especially on SMP machines

[Oliver Endriss]

Matthias Dahl wrote:
> Hello Oliver.
> 
> On Saturday 23 August 2008 22:58:39 Oliver Endriss wrote:
> 
> > Finally I had some time to review your patches.
> 
> No problem. I am currently short on time either so I know what it's like. :-)
> 
> > budget-av:
> > Could you please elaborate why
> > - ciintf_slot_ts_enable
> > - ciintf_slot_shutdown
> > require locking? I cannot see that.
> 
> The thought behind that was to make it impossible that any of all the ciintf 
> functions could interfere with each other and thus possibly get the ci intf 
> in an undefined state. So to prevent that only one one of them is allowed to 
> be active at any given time. But you are right one could have left those out 
> of there... sorry, my fault.
> 
> > ciintf_slot_reset:
> > Ok, although I doubt that it will make any difference, because the
> > routine will kill tuner and CI interface anyway...
> 
> Basically, see above. :-) Nevertheless I still think we should make absolutely 
> certain that nothing interferes with the reset function because otherwise we 
> may end up with an inoperational ci system just like the issues I had. So 
> having the mutex in there won't hurt at the very least.

Agreed.

> > ciintf_poll_slot_status:
> > Hm, I think my version was also correct.
> 
> Same applies here. I guess I was just too overly cautious trying to get rid of 
> those problems. The only reason I saw here was that slot_status might have 
> gotten changed when the mutex was released early. But that clearly shouldn't 
> cause any harm either. Man, I guess was asleep while doing those. That's 
> already kinda embarrassing...
> 
> > Btw, wouldn't it be better to remove the locking stuff from budget-av.c,
> > and do all locking in dvb_ca_en50221.c?
> 
> That was exactly what I was working on before I got your patch but as your 
> patch seemed to work fine initially I put that on hold and later just started 
> from scratch and only put the locks in [read|write]_data because then I knew 
> what was causing the trouble.

When I wrote the budget-av patch, I assumed that dvb_ca_en50221.c was
fine. I read the comments in dvb_ca_en50221.h and noticed that the locks
were missing in budget-av.c.

As the budget-av patch was not sufficient, it is better to handle the
locking in dvb_ca_en50221.c.

> > Imho this would be a far better solution (only one mutex, not two).
> > Could you implement that?

Note that the *_irq functions in dvb_ca_en50221.c might be called from
interrupt context. (Does not apply for budget-av, but for budget-ci.)
Interrupt routines cannot use the mutex stuff...

> Actually I wanted to work on it today but I am dealing with some health issues 
> so I didn't get around to it. I try to get it done in the next few days. So 
> with some extra days for testing, hopefully I will have something next 
> weekend.

No need to hurry. Bug fixes can be submitted to the kernel anytime, even
when the merge window (for new features) has closed.

CU
Oliver

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