tree ee02b2b71268d9478f709bea8636ddd5eafdc007
parent 406089d01562f1e2bf9f089fd7637009ebaad589
author Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org> 1358304771 -0800
committer Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> 1358355933 -0800

module, async: async_synchronize_full() on module init iff async is used

If the default iosched is built as module, the kernel may deadlock
while trying to load the iosched module on device probe if the probing
was running off async.  This is because async_synchronize_full() at
the end of module init ends up waiting for the async job which
initiated the module loading.

 async A				modprobe

 1. finds a device
 2. registers the block device
 3. request_module(default iosched)
					4. modprobe in userland
					5. load and init module
					6. async_synchronize_full()

Async A waits for modprobe to finish in request_module() and modprobe
waits for async A to finish in async_synchronize_full().

Because there's no easy to track dependency once control goes out to
userland, implementing properly nested flushing is difficult.  For
now, make module init perform async_synchronize_full() iff module init
has queued async jobs as suggested by Linus.

This avoids the described deadlock because iosched module doesn't use
async and thus wouldn't invoke async_synchronize_full().  This is
hacky and incomplete.  It will deadlock if async module loading nests;
however, this works around the known problem case and seems to be the
best of bad options.

For more details, please refer to the following thread.

  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1420814

Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Reported-by: Alex Riesen <raa.lkml@gmail.com>
Tested-by: Ming Lei <ming.lei@canonical.com>
Tested-by: Alex Riesen <raa.lkml@gmail.com>
Cc: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>