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input: Fix interrupt enable in i8042_ctr when enabling interrupt fails

PATCH In review Markus Armbruster 3 participants 4 messages Sep 10, 2007

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#0 lore raw

PATCH 1/1 input: Fix interrupt enable in i8042_ctr when enabling interrupt fails

When enabling interrupts fails, the interrupt enable bit remains set in i8042_ctr. Later writes of i8042_ctr to the hardware could accidentally retry enabling interrupts. Clear the bit on failure.

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Some time ago Steven Rostedt and I went over this changeset:

commit de9ce703c6b807b1dfef5942df4f2fadd0fdb67a
Author: Dmitry Torokhov <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Sep 10 21:57:21 2006 -0400

Input: i8042 - get rid of polling timer

Remove polling timer that was used to detect keybord/mice hotplug and register both IRQs right away instead of waiting for a driver to attach to a port.

Steven pointed out to me that it changes behavior when enabling IRQ fails.

The old code enabled IRQs this way:

	i8042_ctr |= port->irqen;

	if (i8042_command(&i8042_ctr, I8042_CMD_CTL_WCTR)) {
		i8042_ctr &= ~port->irqen;
		return -1;
	}

i8042_ctr shadows the 8042's CTR. So, when enabling fails, the bit is cleared in the shadow.

The new code does not clear the bit on the error path:

static int i8042_enable_kbd_port(void)

{
	i8042_ctr &= ~I8042_CTR_KBDDIS;
	i8042_ctr |= I8042_CTR_KBDINT;

	if (i8042_command(&i8042_ctr, I8042_CMD_CTL_WCTR)) {
		printk(KERN_ERR "i8042.c: Failed to enable KBD port.\n");
		return -EIO;
	}

	return 0;
}

Same for i8042_enable_aux_port().

This leads to the question whether there are later writes of i8042_ctr (possibly with other bits altered) to the hardware, which could accidentally retry enabling interrupts.

I believe this possible, but unlikely (perhaps not so unlikely on virtual machines). Scenarios involve enable succeeding the first time, failing the second time, and succeeding the third time. I can provide details, but the point I'd like to make is not that this is broken (although it is, strictly speaking), but that it is not obviously correct where it easily could be: just clear the interrupt enable bits when writing them to the hardware failed, like the old code did.

drivers/input/serio/i8042.c +2 -0
index db9cca3..71a7e39 100644
@@ -385,6 +385,7 @@ static int i8042_enable_kbd_port(void)
 	i8042_ctr |= I8042_CTR_KBDINT;
 
 	if (i8042_command(&i8042_ctr, I8042_CMD_CTL_WCTR)) {
+		i8042_ctr &= ~I8042_CTR_KBDINT;
 		printk(KERN_ERR "i8042.c: Failed to enable KBD port.\n");
 		return -EIO;
 	}
@@ -402,6 +403,7 @@ static int i8042_enable_aux_port(void)
 	i8042_ctr |= I8042_CTR_AUXINT;
 
 	if (i8042_command(&i8042_ctr, I8042_CMD_CTL_WCTR)) {
+		i8042_ctr &= ~I8042_CTR_AUXINT;
 		printk(KERN_ERR "i8042.c: Failed to enable AUX port.\n");
 		return -EIO;
 	}
#1 lore raw

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Quoted 10 lines · Markus Armbruster

I believe this possible, but unlikely (perhaps not so unlikely on virtual machines). Scenarios involve enable succeeding the first time, failing the second time, and succeeding the third time. I can provide details, but the point I'd like to make is not that this is broken (although it is, strictly speaking), but that it is not obviously correct where it easily could be: just clear the interrupt enable bits when writing them to the hardware failed, like the old code did.

I also want to stress that this is more of a clean up for "technically correct" code than a bug fix. This bug probably would never happen on baremetal unless it was running on broken hardware.

BUT!!!

With more and more systems going to a virtual environment, having a bug or some other anomaly can trigger the error that this patch prevents. The patch will also trigger a print in the case of running on a buggy virtual machine, which would help out the developers of that virtual machine to fix their code.

Please apply.

-- Steve

maintainer
#2 lore raw

Hi Steven, Markus,

Quoted 18 lines · Steven Rostedt

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Quoted 10 lines · Markus Armbruster

I believe this possible, but unlikely (perhaps not so unlikely on virtual machines). Scenarios involve enable succeeding the first time, failing the second time, and succeeding the third time. I can provide details, but the point I'd like to make is not that this is broken (although it is, strictly speaking), but that it is not obviously correct where it easily could be: just clear the interrupt enable bits when writing them to the hardware failed, like the old code did.

I also want to stress that this is more of a clean up for "technically correct" code than a bug fix. This bug probably would never happen on baremetal unless it was running on broken hardware.

Quoted 8 lines

BUT!!!

With more and more systems going to a virtual environment, having a bug or some other anomaly can trigger the error that this patch prevents. The patch will also trigger a print in the case of running on a buggy virtual machine, which would help out the developers of that virtual machine to fix their code.

The patch is in my tree and will be merged in the next window.

Signature · 1 line
Dmitry
#3 lore raw
In reply to Markus Armbruster

--

Quoted 10 lines · Markus Armbruster

I believe this possible, but unlikely (perhaps not so unlikely on virtual machines). Scenarios involve enable succeeding the first time, failing the second time, and succeeding the third time. I can provide details, but the point I'd like to make is not that this is broken (although it is, strictly speaking), but that it is not obviously correct where it easily could be: just clear the interrupt enable bits when writing them to the hardware failed, like the old code did.

I also want to stress that this is more of a clean up for "technically correct" code than a bug fix. This bug probably would never happen on baremetal unless it was running on broken hardware.

BUT!!!

With more and more systems going to a virtual environment, having a bug or some other anomaly can trigger the error that this patch prevents. The patch will also trigger a print in the case of running on a buggy virtual machine, which would help out the developers of that virtual machine to fix their code.

Please apply.

-- Steve