Re: [RFC][PATCH] timers: Add del_time_free() to be called before freeing timers

[Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>]

On Thu, 7 Apr 2022 14:58:02 -0700
Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net> wrote:

> > Add a del_timer_free() that not only does a del_timer_sync() but will mark  
> 
> This limits the use case to situations where del_timer_sync() can actually
> be called. There is, however, code where this is not possible.
> Specifically, it doesn't work if the code triggered with the timer uses a
> lock, and del_timer() is also called under that same lock. An example for
> that is the code in sound/synth/emux/emux.c. How do you suggest to handle
> that situation ?

Easy. Tell me how that situation is not a bug?

That code you point out at emux.c looks extremely buggy as well. In other
words, if you can't call del_timer_free() for the reason you mention above,
the code is very likely to have race conditions. I cannot think of a
situation that it is safe to do this.

In fact, I think that just replacing that with del_timer_free() may be good
enough. At least to show why it blows up later. I'm confused in what they
are doing by taking that lock. I can see:

	CPU1				CPU2
	----				----
				    snd_emux_timer_callback()
    spin_lock(voice_lock)
    if (timer_active)
	del_timer()
    spin_unlock(voice_lock)

				    [..]
				    	do_again++
				    [..]
				    if (do_again) {
					mod_timer()
					timer_active = 1;
				    }

    [..]
    free(emu);


BOOM!!

Hmm, perhaps I should change the code in __mod_timer() to:

	if (WARN_ON(timer->flags & TIMER_FREED))
		return;

To not rearm it.

-- Steve