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Vladimir Oltean e2a10daba8 net: phy: transfer phy_config_inband() locking responsibility to phylink
Problem description
===================

Lockdep reports a possible circular locking dependency (AB/BA) between
&pl->state_mutex and &phy->lock, as follows.

phylink_resolve() // acquires &pl->state_mutex
-> phylink_major_config()
   -> phy_config_inband() // acquires &pl->phydev->lock

whereas all the other call sites where &pl->state_mutex and
&pl->phydev->lock have the locking scheme reversed. Everywhere else,
&pl->phydev->lock is acquired at the top level, and &pl->state_mutex at
the lower level. A clear example is phylink_bringup_phy().

The outlier is the newly introduced phy_config_inband() and the existing
lock order is the correct one. To understand why it cannot be the other
way around, it is sufficient to consider phylink_phy_change(), phylink's
callback from the PHY device's phy->phy_link_change() virtual method,
invoked by the PHY state machine.

phy_link_up() and phy_link_down(), the (indirect) callers of
phylink_phy_change(), are called with &phydev->lock acquired.
Then phylink_phy_change() acquires its own &pl->state_mutex, to
serialize changes made to its pl->phy_state and pl->link_config.
So all other instances of &pl->state_mutex and &phydev->lock must be
consistent with this order.

Problem impact
==============

I think the kernel runs a serious deadlock risk if an existing
phylink_resolve() thread, which results in a phy_config_inband() call,
is concurrent with a phy_link_up() or phy_link_down() call, which will
deadlock on &pl->state_mutex in phylink_phy_change(). Practically
speaking, the impact may be limited by the slow speed of the medium
auto-negotiation protocol, which makes it unlikely for the current state
to still be unresolved when a new one is detected, but I think the
problem is there. Nonetheless, the problem was discovered using lockdep.

Proposed solution
=================

Practically speaking, the phy_config_inband() requirement of having
phydev->lock acquired must transfer to the caller (phylink is the only
caller). There, it must bubble up until immediately before
&pl->state_mutex is acquired, for the cases where that takes place.

Solution details, considerations, notes
=======================================

This is the phy_config_inband() call graph:

                          sfp_upstream_ops :: connect_phy()
                          |
                          v
                          phylink_sfp_connect_phy()
                          |
                          v
                          phylink_sfp_config_phy()
                          |
                          |   sfp_upstream_ops :: module_insert()
                          |   |
                          |   v
                          |   phylink_sfp_module_insert()
                          |   |
                          |   |   sfp_upstream_ops :: module_start()
                          |   |   |
                          |   |   v
                          |   |   phylink_sfp_module_start()
                          |   |   |
                          |   v   v
                          |   phylink_sfp_config_optical()
 phylink_start()          |   |
   |   phylink_resume()   v   v
   |   |  phylink_sfp_set_config()
   |   |  |
   v   v  v
 phylink_mac_initial_config()
   |   phylink_resolve()
   |   |  phylink_ethtool_ksettings_set()
   v   v  v
   phylink_major_config()
            |
            v
    phy_config_inband()

phylink_major_config() caller #1, phylink_mac_initial_config(), does not
acquire &pl->state_mutex nor do its callers. It must acquire
&pl->phydev->lock prior to calling phylink_major_config().

phylink_major_config() caller #2, phylink_resolve() acquires
&pl->state_mutex, thus also needs to acquire &pl->phydev->lock.

phylink_major_config() caller #3, phylink_ethtool_ksettings_set(), is
completely uninteresting, because it only calls phylink_major_config()
if pl->phydev is NULL (otherwise it calls phy_ethtool_ksettings_set()).
We need to change nothing there.

Other solutions
===============

The lock inversion between &pl->state_mutex and &pl->phydev->lock has
occurred at least once before, as seen in commit c718af2d00 ("net:
phylink: fix ethtool -A with attached PHYs"). The solution there was to
simply not call phy_set_asym_pause() under the &pl->state_mutex. That
cannot be extended to our case though, where the phy_config_inband()
call is much deeper inside the &pl->state_mutex section.

Fixes: 5fd0f1a02e ("net: phylink: add negotiation of in-band capabilities")
Signed-off-by: Vladimir Oltean <vladimir.oltean@nxp.com>
Reviewed-by: Russell King (Oracle) <rmk+kernel@armlinux.org.uk>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20250904125238.193990-2-vladimir.oltean@nxp.com
Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>
2025-09-05 17:49:43 -07:00
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crypto Significant patch series in this pull request: 2025-08-03 16:23:09 -07:00
Documentation Including fixes from netfilter, wireless and Bluetooth. 2025-09-04 09:59:15 -07:00
drivers net: phy: transfer phy_config_inband() locking responsibility to phylink 2025-09-05 17:49:43 -07:00
fs a ksmbd server fix 2025-09-03 20:44:15 -07:00
include Including fixes from netfilter, wireless and Bluetooth. 2025-09-04 09:59:15 -07:00
init hardening: Require clang 20.1.0 for __counted_by 2025-08-29 12:04:53 -07:00
io_uring io_uring/kbuf: always use READ_ONCE() to read ring provided buffer lengths 2025-08-28 05:48:34 -06:00
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mm slab fixes for 6.17-rc5 2025-09-04 09:54:20 -07:00
net netfilter pull request nf-25-09-04 2025-09-04 06:59:27 -07:00
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scripts kasan: fix GCC mem-intrinsic prefix with sw tags 2025-08-27 22:45:43 -07:00
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virt Merge tag 'kvm-x86-no_assignment-6.17' of https://github.com/kvm-x86/linux into HEAD 2025-07-29 08:36:42 -04:00
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COPYING COPYING: state that all contributions really are covered by this file 2020-02-10 13:32:20 -08:00
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Makefile Linux 6.17-rc4 2025-08-31 15:33:07 -07:00
README README: Fix spelling 2024-03-18 03:36:32 -06:00

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