Il 06/05/2013 10:40, Jan Kiszka ha scritto: >> >> [*] The "subscriber link" mechanism allows an LWN.net >> subscriber to generate a special URL for a >> subscription-only article. That URL can then be given to >> others, who will be able to access the article regardless >> of whether they are subscribed. This feature is made >> available as a service to LWN subscribers, and in the hope >> that they will use it to spread the word about their >> favorite LWN articles. >> >>> And memory_region_find should likely always increment a reference >>> if the target region has an owner. We should convert its users to >>> properly dereference the region once done with it. >> >> Yes. But this is what requires you to have an owner for all regions. > > You don't need an owner for regions that are protect by the BQL (the > majority in the foreseeable future). For those regions, reference > counting can remain a nop, internally.
The problem is that even if I/O for a region is supposed to happen within the BQL, lookup can happen outside the BQL. Lookup will use the region even if it is just to discard it: VCPU thread (under BQL) device thread -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- flatview_ref memory_region_find returns d->mr memory_region_ref(d->mr) /* nop */ qdev_free(d) object_unparent(d) unrealize(d) memory_region_del_subregion(d->mr) FlatView updated, d->mr not in the new view flatview_unref memory_region_unref(d->mr) object_unref(d) free(d) if (!d->mr->is_ram) { /* BAD! */ memory_region_unref(d->mr) /* nop */ return error } Here, the memory region is dereferenced *before* we know that it is BQL-free (in fact, exactly to ascertain whether it is BQL-free). We can hack around it by putting an is_ram field in FlatRange and MemoryRegionSection, but it is not a solution. Here is how giving an owner to all regions fixes it: VCPU thread (under BQL) device thread -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- flatview_ref memory_region_find returns d->mr memory_region_ref(d->mr) object_ref(d) qdev_free(d) object_unparent(d) unrealize(d) memory_region_del_subregion(d->mr) FlatView updated, d->mr not in the new view flatview_unref memory_region_unref(d->mr) object_unref(d) /* still alive! */ if (!d->mr->is_ram) { memory_region_unref(d->mr) object_unref(d) free(d) return error } Paolo