On Tue, Jul 30, 2019 at 10:13:55PM +0100, Al Viro wrote: > AFAICS, it (and configfs_unregister_default_group()) > will break if called with group non-empty (i.e. when rmdir(2) > would've failed with -ENOTEMPTY); configfs_detach_prep() > is called, but return value is completely ignored. > > Similar breakage happens in configfs_unregister_subsystem(), > but there it looks like the drivers are responsible for not calling > it that way. It yells if configfs_detach_prep() fails and AFAICS > all callers do guarantee it never happens. > > configfs_unregister_group() is quiet; from my reading of > the callers, only pci-endpoint might end up calling it for group > that is not guaranteed to be empty. I'm not familiar with > pci-endpoint guts, so I might very well be missing something there. > > Questions to configfs API maintainers (that'd be Christoph, these > days, AFAIK) > > 1) should such a call be considered a driver bug? > 2) should configfs_unregister_group() at least warn when that happens? > > and, to pci-endpoint maintainer > > 3) what, if anything, prevents such calls in pci-endpoint? Because > as it is, configfs will break badly when that happens... More specifically, consider something like pci_epf_test_init() calling pci_epf_register_driver(). Which, in turn, calls pci_ep_cfs_add_epf_group() and hits group = configfs_register_default_group(functions_group, name, &pci_epf_group_type); in there. OK, so we get a directory tree created, with static const struct config_item_type pci_epf_group_type = { .ct_group_ops = &pci_epf_group_ops, .ct_owner = THIS_MODULE, }; for type. Since pci_epf_group_ops is static struct configfs_group_operations pci_epf_group_ops = { .make_group = &pci_epf_make, .drop_item = &pci_epf_drop, }; and has ->make_group(), userland can do mkdir() in there. Now, doing so pins ->ct_owner, preventing module_exit() until we rmdir() the sucker. And configfs_default_group_unregister() *IS* triggered by module_exit(), but it's the wrong module. THIS_MODULE here refers to pci-ep-cfs, not pci-epf-test, so it doesn't do a damn thing to prevent rmmod pci-epf-test, calling static void __exit pci_epf_test_exit(void) { pci_epf_unregister_driver(&test_driver); } which leads to pci_ep_cfs_remove_epc_group(), with configfs_unregister_default_group(group); in it. What's to prevent that call on non-empty group? AFAICS, pci_ep_cfs_add_epc_group()/pci_ep_cfs_remove_epc_group() might grow a similar problem, but these have no current users. Folks, should that be treated as bug in driver (as in "don't you ever call configfs_unregister_{default_,}group() on a non-empty group") or should that be dealt with in configfs?