Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2010 06:49:41 +0200
From: "zenek blus" <zenblu@wp.pl>
Subject: Calling vm_ops->open from a driver / reusing vma memory with
 vm_ops in other drivers
Message-ID: <4c8472e5c36922.92225774@wp.pl>
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Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org
To: linux-mm@kvack.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org

Hello,
I have the following problem:

Driver A has a custom mmap() implementation and assigns own vm_ops to a 
created vma.
The process which called mmap() passes the resulting userspace address 
to another
driver, driver B.

Driver B would then like to increment usage count on that memory for a 
duration of
some operation, i.e. call vm_ops->open(). It can find_vma() for the 
userspace address
it was given and call vm_ops->open() on found vma. It can then call 
vm_ops->close()
when finished.

The problem here though is that the found vm_area_struct (and the 
userspace address
for that matter) might not be valid anymore by the time driver B wants 
to call close().
There can be three possibilities here:

a) vm_area_struct used for open() is still present and can be reused for 
close()
- that looks ok, but storing a pointer to that vma is risky, driver B 
has no way to
know whether the pointer is still valid.

b) some other vm_area_structs are still present, but driver B has no 
knowledge
about them - so it does not have anything to pass to close().

c) no vm_area_structs remain, but since we called open() before, driver 
A is still
waiting for driver B to call close(); driver B does not have anything to 
pass to
close() and there is nothing in the system that could be passed to it 
anyway.

I don't suppose copying aside the whoe vm_area_struct used for open() 
call and passing
it back to close() is a good idea. Is there any way to do this? Or maybe 
I have it all
wrong?

Thank you,
Zenek


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