Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751495Ab1FNECc (ORCPT ); Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:02:32 -0400 Received: from mail.vyatta.com ([76.74.103.46]:49970 "EHLO mail.vyatta.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751089Ab1FNEC1 convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:02:27 -0400 Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:02:30 -0400 From: Stephen Hemminger To: Greg Thelen Cc: Stephen Hemminger , netdev@vger.kernel.org, "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" Subject: Re: [PATCH] sky2: avoid using uninitialized variable Message-ID: <20110614000230.4166a1ae@s6510.ftrdhcpuser.net> In-Reply-To: References: <20110613181212.571f8e76@s6510.ftrdhcpuser.net> Organization: Vyatta X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.7.6 (GTK+ 2.20.1; x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2663 Lines: 59 On Mon, 13 Jun 2011 17:34:00 -0700 Greg Thelen wrote: > On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 3:12 PM, Stephen Hemminger > wrote: > > On Mon, 13 Jun 2011 14:21:59 -0700 > > Greg Thelen wrote: > > > >> I am not sure if 0 or ~0 would be a better choice in the gm_phy_read() > >> error case. ?I used 0. ?A more complete solution might be to plumb up > >> error handling to the callers of gm_phy_read(). > >> > >> == > >> From 37486219a3d93881f3b2619a4b2bb21be62db7d4 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 > >> From: Greg Thelen > >> Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2011 14:09:07 -0700 > >> Subject: [PATCH] sky2: avoid using uninitialized variable > >> > >> Prior to this change gm_phy_read() could return an uninitialized > >> variable if __gm_phy_read() failed. > >> > >> This change returns zero in the failure case. > >> > >> Signed-off-by: Greg Thelen > > > > Shouldn't the callers be changed to check rather than just returning > > 0 and masking the problem. > > I agree that the right long term solution is to plumb the error > handling up through the callers. This would involve deleting the > error-free gm_phy_read() routine and replacing all calls to it with > calls to error-capable __gm_phy_read(). This would require converting > several routines from returning void to returning int allowing errors > to propagate upwards. Notable affected routines include: > sky2_phy_power_up(), sky2_wol_init(), sky2_phy_power_down(), > sky2_hw_down(), sky2_mac_init(), sky2_hw_up(), sky2_phy_intr(), > sky2_led(). sky2_restart() would likely have to re-queue the work > item in the case of failure. Presumably sky2_poll() would return 0 if > error is seen. On a related note, it also seems that gm_phy_write() > callers should be checking its return value to also handle the same > class of I/O errors. Testing these changes would involve injecting > error values or access to certain kinds of broken hardware. In my experience if phy reads once successfully, it is going to read every time. If there is a problem it only happens on the first access (powered off, bad timing, etc). > For the short term I figured that not consuming random data was a step > in right direction. But I understand if you prefer to hold out for > the complete solution. Unfortunately, I do not currently have time to > contribute to the complete solution. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/