[PATCH v1 1/4] net/e1000: prevent crashes in secondary processes

[Stephen Hemminger]

On Thu, 12 Dec 2024 16:19:03 +0000
Anatoly Burakov <anatoly.burakov at intel.com> wrote:

> Currently, the architecture of the base driver is such that it uses
> function pointers internally. These are not guaranteed to be valid in
> secondary processes, which can lead to crashes. This patch prevents these
> functions from being executed in e1000 driver.
> 
> Fixes: 805803445a02 ("e1000: support EM devices (also known as e1000/e1000e)")
> Cc: stable at dpdk.org
> 
> Signed-off-by: Anatoly Burakov <anatoly.burakov at intel.com>
> ---

Not a fan of this. It creates so many special cases like: "This is ixgbe, and
it can do X but not Y in secondary process".

Either the driver should get fixed correctly so that all operations work
in secondary process, yes you would have to fix the base code.

Or the driver should be not support secondary process model at all.

If you have to write lots of documentation about limitations, it is not helping
the user.