This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled xen/blkback: don't use xen_blkif_get() in xen-blkback kthread to the 4.9-stable tree which can be found at: http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git;a=summary The filename of the patch is: xen-blkback-don-t-use-xen_blkif_get-in-xen-blkback-kthread.patch and it can be found in the queue-4.9 subdirectory. If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> know about it. >From a24fa22ce22ae302b3bf8f7008896d52d5d57b8d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Juergen Gross <jgross@xxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 18 May 2017 17:28:49 +0200 Subject: xen/blkback: don't use xen_blkif_get() in xen-blkback kthread MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit From: Juergen Gross <jgross@xxxxxxxx> commit a24fa22ce22ae302b3bf8f7008896d52d5d57b8d upstream. There is no need to use xen_blkif_get()/xen_blkif_put() in the kthread of xen-blkback. Thread stopping is synchronous and using the blkif reference counting in the kthread will avoid to ever let the reference count drop to zero at the end of an I/O running concurrent to disconnecting and multiple rings. Setting ring->xenblkd to NULL after stopping the kthread isn't needed as the kthread does this already. Signed-off-by: Juergen Gross <jgross@xxxxxxxx> Tested-by: Steven Haigh <netwiz@xxxxxxxxx> Acked-by: Roger Pau Monné <roger.pau@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- drivers/block/xen-blkback/blkback.c | 3 --- drivers/block/xen-blkback/xenbus.c | 1 - 2 files changed, 4 deletions(-) --- a/drivers/block/xen-blkback/blkback.c +++ b/drivers/block/xen-blkback/blkback.c @@ -609,8 +609,6 @@ int xen_blkif_schedule(void *arg) unsigned long timeout; int ret; - xen_blkif_get(blkif); - set_freezable(); while (!kthread_should_stop()) { if (try_to_freeze()) @@ -665,7 +663,6 @@ purge_gnt_list: print_stats(ring); ring->xenblkd = NULL; - xen_blkif_put(blkif); return 0; } --- a/drivers/block/xen-blkback/xenbus.c +++ b/drivers/block/xen-blkback/xenbus.c @@ -255,7 +255,6 @@ static int xen_blkif_disconnect(struct x if (ring->xenblkd) { kthread_stop(ring->xenblkd); wake_up(&ring->shutdown_wq); - ring->xenblkd = NULL; } /* The above kthread_stop() guarantees that at this point we Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from jgross@xxxxxxxx are queue-4.9/xen-blkback-don-t-use-xen_blkif_get-in-xen-blkback-kthread.patch