Fix batched requests from waiting forever on failure.
The firmware API batched requests feature has been broken since the API call
request_firmware_direct() was introduced on commit bba3a87e98 ("firmware:
Introduce request_firmware_direct()"), added on v3.14 *iff* the firmware
being requested was not present in *certain kernel builds* [0].
When no firmware is found the worker which goes on to finish never informs
waiters queued up of this, so any batched request will stall in what seems
to be forever (MAX_SCHEDULE_TIMEOUT). Sadly, a reboot will also stall, as
the reboot notifier was only designed to kill custom fallback workers. The
issue seems to the user as a type of soft lockup, what *actually* happens
underneath the hood is a wait call which never completes as we failed to
issue a completion on error.
For device drivers with optional firmware schemes (ie, Intel iwlwifi, or
Netronome -- even though it uses request_firmware() and not
request_firmware_direct()), this could mean that when you boot a system with
multiple cards the firmware will seem to never load on the system, or that
the card is just not responsive even the driver initialization. Due to
differences in scheduling possible this should not always trigger --
one would need to to ensure that multiple requests are in place at the
right time for this to work, also release_firmware() must not be called
prior to any other incoming request. The complexity may not be worth
supporting batched requests in the future given the wait mechanism is
only used also for the fallback mechanism. We'll keep it for now and
just fix it.
Its reported that at least with the Intel WiFi cards on one system this
issue was creeping up 50% of the boots [0].
Before this commit batched requests testing revealed:
============================================================================
CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER_FALLBACK=n
CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER=y
Most common Linux distribution setup.
API-type no-firmware-found firmware-found
----------------------------------------------------------------------
request_firmware() FAIL OK
request_firmware_direct() FAIL OK
request_firmware_nowait(uevent=true) FAIL OK
request_firmware_nowait(uevent=false) FAIL OK
============================================================================
CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER_FALLBACK=n
CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER=n
Only possible if CONFIG_DELL_RBU=n and CONFIG_LEDS_LP55XX_COMMON=n, rare.
API-type no-firmware-found firmware-found
----------------------------------------------------------------------
request_firmware() FAIL OK
request_firmware_direct() FAIL OK
request_firmware_nowait(uevent=true) FAIL OK
request_firmware_nowait(uevent=false) FAIL OK
============================================================================
CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER_FALLBACK=y
CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER=y
Google Android setup.
API-type no-firmware-found firmware-found
----------------------------------------------------------------------
request_firmware() OK OK
request_firmware_direct() FAIL OK
request_firmware_nowait(uevent=true) OK OK
request_firmware_nowait(uevent=false) OK OK
============================================================================
Ater this commit batched testing results:
============================================================================
CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER_FALLBACK=n
CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER=y
Most common Linux distribution setup.
API-type no-firmware-found firmware-found
----------------------------------------------------------------------
request_firmware() OK OK
request_firmware_direct() OK OK
request_firmware_nowait(uevent=true) OK OK
request_firmware_nowait(uevent=false) OK OK
============================================================================
CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER_FALLBACK=n
CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER=n
Only possible if CONFIG_DELL_RBU=n and CONFIG_LEDS_LP55XX_COMMON=n, rare.
API-type no-firmware-found firmware-found
----------------------------------------------------------------------
request_firmware() OK OK
request_firmware_direct() OK OK
request_firmware_nowait(uevent=true) OK OK
request_firmware_nowait(uevent=false) OK OK
============================================================================
CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER_FALLBACK=y
CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER=y
Google Android setup.
API-type no-firmware-found firmware-found
----------------------------------------------------------------------
request_firmware() OK OK
request_firmware_direct() OK OK
request_firmware_nowait(uevent=true) OK OK
request_firmware_nowait(uevent=false) OK OK
============================================================================
[0] https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=195477
Cc: stable <stable@vger.kernel.org> # v3.14
Fixes: bba3a87e98 ("firmware: Introduce request_firmware_direct()"
Reported-by: Nicolas <nbroeking@me.com>
Reported-by: John Ewalt <jewalt@lgsinnovations.com>
Reported-by: Jakub Kicinski <jakub.kicinski@netronome.com>
Signed-off-by: Luis R. Rodriguez <mcgrof@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
90d41e74a9