David Dillow writes: > F.e. anything that calls rtmsg_ifinfo() almost always calls it without > the dev_base_lock held. This includes the dev_ioctl(), dev_ifsioc(), > dev_change_flags(), dev_open() call chain, among others. And anything > that notfies using the netdev_chain notifier list. Holding the rtnl_sem semaphore makes holding the dev_base_lock() unnecessary in most cases. Actually, let's go over the cases in detail: net/core/rtnetlink.c:rtnetlink_fill_ifinfo() Called from: 1) rtnetlink_dump_ifinfo, holds dev_base_lock 2) rtmsg_ifinfo, all callers paths hold rtnl_sem net/core/dev.c:sprintf_stats() Caller dev_get_info() holds dev_base_lock And that's it. Later, David S. Miller davem@redhat.com - : send the line "unsubscribe linux-net" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
