On 2/1/23 7:43 AM, Liu, Yi L wrote: >> From: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@xxxxxxxxxx> >> Sent: Wednesday, February 1, 2023 4:26 AM >> >> On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 03:06:35PM -0500, Matthew Rosato wrote: >>> @@ -799,13 +794,14 @@ >> EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(vfio_file_enforced_coherent); >>> void vfio_file_set_kvm(struct file *file, struct kvm *kvm) >>> { >>> struct vfio_group *group = file->private_data; >>> + unsigned long flags; >>> >>> if (!vfio_file_is_group(file)) >>> return; >>> >>> - mutex_lock(&group->group_lock); >>> + spin_lock_irqsave(&group->kvm_ref_lock, flags); >>> group->kvm = kvm; >>> - mutex_unlock(&group->group_lock); >>> + spin_unlock_irqrestore(&group->kvm_ref_lock, flags); >> >> We know we are in a sleeping context here so these are just >> 'spin_lock()', same with the other one > > a dumb question. Why spinlock is required here? 😊 > You mean as opposed to another mutex? I don't think it's required per se (we are replacing a mutex so we could have again used another mutex here), but all current users of this new lock hold it over a very short window (e.g. set a pointer as above, or refcount++ and copy the pointer as in the first device_open)