diff mbox series

[v2] ath10k: fix pointer arithmetic error in trace call

Message ID 20220221122638.7971-1-franciman12@gmail.com
State New
Headers show
Series [v2] ath10k: fix pointer arithmetic error in trace call | expand

Commit Message

Francesco Magliocca Feb. 21, 2022, 12:26 p.m. UTC
Reading through the commit history, it looks like
there is no special need why we must skip the first 4 bytes
in this trace call:

trace_ath10k_htt_rx_desc(ar, (void*)rx_desc + sizeof(u32),
			 hw->rx_desc_ops->rx_desc_size - sizeof(u32));

found in the function ath10k_htt_rx_amsdu_pop in the file htt_rx.c

i think the original author
(who is also the one who added rx_desc tracing capabilities
in a0883cf7e75a) just wanted to trace the rx_desc contents,
ignoring the fw_rx_desc_base info field
(which is the part being skipped over).
But the trace_ath10k_htt_rx_desc later added
don't care about skipping it, so it may be good
to uniform this call to the others in the file.
But this would change the output of the trace and
thus it may be a problem for tools that rely on it.
Therefore I propose until further discussion
to just keep it as it is and just fix the pointer arithmetic bug.

Add missing void* cast to rx descriptor pointer in order to
properly skip the initial 4 bytes of the rx descriptor
when passing it to trace_ath10k_htt_rx_desc trace function.

This fixes the pointer arithmetic error detected
by Dan Carpenter's static analysis tool.

Fixes: 6bae9de622d3 ("ath10k: abstract htt_rx_desc structure")

Tested-on: QCA6174 hw3.2 PCI WLAN.RM.4.4.1-00157-QCARMSWPZ-1

Signed-off-by: Francesco Magliocca <franciman12@gmail.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/ath10k/20220201130900.GD22458@kili/
---
 drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/htt_rx.c | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

Comments

Jeff Johnson Feb. 22, 2022, 8:52 p.m. UTC | #1
On 2/21/2022 4:26 AM, Francesco Magliocca wrote:
> Reading through the commit history, it looks like
> there is no special need why we must skip the first 4 bytes
> in this trace call:
> 
> trace_ath10k_htt_rx_desc(ar, (void*)rx_desc + sizeof(u32),
> 			 hw->rx_desc_ops->rx_desc_size - sizeof(u32));
> 
> found in the function ath10k_htt_rx_amsdu_pop in the file htt_rx.c
> 
> i think the original author
> (who is also the one who added rx_desc tracing capabilities
> in a0883cf7e75a) just wanted to trace the rx_desc contents,
> ignoring the fw_rx_desc_base info field
> (which is the part being skipped over).
> But the trace_ath10k_htt_rx_desc later added
> don't care about skipping it, so it may be good
> to uniform this call to the others in the file.
> But this would change the output of the trace and
> thus it may be a problem for tools that rely on it.
> Therefore I propose until further discussion
> to just keep it as it is and just fix the pointer arithmetic bug.
> 
> Add missing void* cast to rx descriptor pointer in order to
> properly skip the initial 4 bytes of the rx descriptor
> when passing it to trace_ath10k_htt_rx_desc trace function.
> 
> This fixes the pointer arithmetic error detected
> by Dan Carpenter's static analysis tool.
> 
> Fixes: 6bae9de622d3 ("ath10k: abstract htt_rx_desc structure")
> 
> Tested-on: QCA6174 hw3.2 PCI WLAN.RM.4.4.1-00157-QCARMSWPZ-1
> 
> Signed-off-by: Francesco Magliocca <franciman12@gmail.com>
> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/ath10k/20220201130900.GD22458@kili/
> ---
>   drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/htt_rx.c | 2 +-
>   1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/htt_rx.c b/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/htt_rx.c
> index 9ad64ca84beb..e01efcd2ce06 100644
> --- a/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/htt_rx.c
> +++ b/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/htt_rx.c
> @@ -429,7 +429,7 @@ static int ath10k_htt_rx_amsdu_pop(struct ath10k_htt *htt,
>   				RX_MSDU_END_INFO0_LAST_MSDU;
>   
>   		/* FIXME: why are we skipping the first part of the rx_desc? */
> -		trace_ath10k_htt_rx_desc(ar, rx_desc + sizeof(u32),
> +		trace_ath10k_htt_rx_desc(ar, (void*)rx_desc + sizeof(u32),

since void pointer arithmetic is undefined in C99 would it be "better" 
to cast as u8 *? I realize that gcc has an extension to support this 
[1], but this usage will cause a warning when -Wpointer-arith is used.

[1] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Pointer-Arith.html
Francesco Magliocca Feb. 23, 2022, 11:48 a.m. UTC | #2
Hi, I picked (void*) to be conformant with the other examples in htt_rx.c
For example at line 1431:
>    rxd = HTT_RX_BUF_TO_RX_DESC(hw,
>                    (void *)msdu->data - hw->rx_desc_ops->rx_desc_size);

But for me it is ok. Maybe we should fix all the occurrences of this kind.

Greetings,
FM

Il giorno mar 22 feb 2022 alle ore 21:52 Jeff Johnson
<quic_jjohnson@quicinc.com> ha scritto:
>
> On 2/21/2022 4:26 AM, Francesco Magliocca wrote:
> > Reading through the commit history, it looks like
> > there is no special need why we must skip the first 4 bytes
> > in this trace call:
> >
> > trace_ath10k_htt_rx_desc(ar, (void*)rx_desc + sizeof(u32),
> >                        hw->rx_desc_ops->rx_desc_size - sizeof(u32));
> >
> > found in the function ath10k_htt_rx_amsdu_pop in the file htt_rx.c
> >
> > i think the original author
> > (who is also the one who added rx_desc tracing capabilities
> > in a0883cf7e75a) just wanted to trace the rx_desc contents,
> > ignoring the fw_rx_desc_base info field
> > (which is the part being skipped over).
> > But the trace_ath10k_htt_rx_desc later added
> > don't care about skipping it, so it may be good
> > to uniform this call to the others in the file.
> > But this would change the output of the trace and
> > thus it may be a problem for tools that rely on it.
> > Therefore I propose until further discussion
> > to just keep it as it is and just fix the pointer arithmetic bug.
> >
> > Add missing void* cast to rx descriptor pointer in order to
> > properly skip the initial 4 bytes of the rx descriptor
> > when passing it to trace_ath10k_htt_rx_desc trace function.
> >
> > This fixes the pointer arithmetic error detected
> > by Dan Carpenter's static analysis tool.
> >
> > Fixes: 6bae9de622d3 ("ath10k: abstract htt_rx_desc structure")
> >
> > Tested-on: QCA6174 hw3.2 PCI WLAN.RM.4.4.1-00157-QCARMSWPZ-1
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Francesco Magliocca <franciman12@gmail.com>
> > Link: https://lore.kernel.org/ath10k/20220201130900.GD22458@kili/
> > ---
> >   drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/htt_rx.c | 2 +-
> >   1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/htt_rx.c b/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/htt_rx.c
> > index 9ad64ca84beb..e01efcd2ce06 100644
> > --- a/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/htt_rx.c
> > +++ b/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/htt_rx.c
> > @@ -429,7 +429,7 @@ static int ath10k_htt_rx_amsdu_pop(struct ath10k_htt *htt,
> >                               RX_MSDU_END_INFO0_LAST_MSDU;
> >
> >               /* FIXME: why are we skipping the first part of the rx_desc? */
> > -             trace_ath10k_htt_rx_desc(ar, rx_desc + sizeof(u32),
> > +             trace_ath10k_htt_rx_desc(ar, (void*)rx_desc + sizeof(u32),
>
> since void pointer arithmetic is undefined in C99 would it be "better"
> to cast as u8 *? I realize that gcc has an extension to support this
> [1], but this usage will cause a warning when -Wpointer-arith is used.
>
> [1] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Pointer-Arith.html
Dan Carpenter Feb. 24, 2022, 7:53 a.m. UTC | #3
On Thu, Feb 24, 2022 at 09:34:31AM +0200, Kalle Valo wrote:
> Francesco Magliocca <franciman12@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Hi, I picked (void*) to be conformant with the other examples in htt_rx.c
> > For example at line 1431:
> >>    rxd = HTT_RX_BUF_TO_RX_DESC(hw,
> >>                    (void *)msdu->data - hw->rx_desc_ops->rx_desc_size);
> >
> > But for me it is ok. Maybe we should fix all the occurrences of this kind.
> 
> Yeah, it would be good to fix the void pointer arithmetic in a separate
> patch. I have planning to enable -Wpointer-arith in my ath10k-check and
> ath11k-check scripts, so patches are very welcome.

Void * casts simplify a lot of code.  Less noise.  More readable.
They're more accurate in a sense because it's not a u8 at all.  The
kernel can't compile with other compilers besides GCC and Clang so why
care about that the C standard hasn't caught up?

What does -Wpointer-arith buy us?

regards,
dan carpenter
Kalle Valo Feb. 24, 2022, 9:59 a.m. UTC | #4
(Changing subject, adding Linus and linux-kernel)

Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@oracle.com> writes:

> On Thu, Feb 24, 2022 at 09:34:31AM +0200, Kalle Valo wrote:
>> Francesco Magliocca <franciman12@gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>> > Hi, I picked (void*) to be conformant with the other examples in htt_rx.c
>> > For example at line 1431:
>> >>    rxd = HTT_RX_BUF_TO_RX_DESC(hw,
>> >>                    (void *)msdu->data - hw->rx_desc_ops->rx_desc_size);
>> >
>> > But for me it is ok. Maybe we should fix all the occurrences of this kind.
>> 
>> Yeah, it would be good to fix the void pointer arithmetic in a separate
>> patch. I have planning to enable -Wpointer-arith in my ath10k-check and
>> ath11k-check scripts, so patches are very welcome.
>
> Void * casts simplify a lot of code.  Less noise.  More readable.
> They're more accurate in a sense because it's not a u8 at all.  The
> kernel can't compile with other compilers besides GCC and Clang so why
> care about that the C standard hasn't caught up?
>
> What does -Wpointer-arith buy us?

A good question. I have always just thought we should avoid void pointer
arithmetic due to the C standard, but now that you mention it void
pointers can indeed simplify the code. So I'm not so sure anymore.

Any opinions? Is there a kernel wide recommendation for this?
Linus Torvalds Feb. 24, 2022, 5:45 p.m. UTC | #5
On Thu, Feb 24, 2022 at 1:59 AM Kalle Valo <kvalo@kernel.org> wrote:
>
> > What does -Wpointer-arith buy us?
>
> A good question. I have always just thought we should avoid void pointer
> arithmetic due to the C standard, but now that you mention it void
> pointers can indeed simplify the code. So I'm not so sure anymore.
>
> Any opinions? Is there a kernel wide recommendation for this?

We consciously use arithmetic on 'void *' in some places, although
it's not exactly _hugely_ common.

It's much more common to turn a pointer into an 'unsigned long' and
then doing basic operations on that.

The advantage of 'void *' is that it does avoid the need to cast the
pointer back.

But at the same time it will never replace the 'cast to an actual
integer type', because the 'void *' arithmetic only does simple
addition and subtraction, and many pointer operations need more (ie
alignment needs to do the bitops).

So I think it's mostly a personal preference. I *do* think that doing
arithmetic on 'void *' is generally superior to doing it the
old-fashioned C way on 'char *' - unless, of course, 'char *' is
simply the native type in question.

So if 'char *' casts (and casting back) is the alternative, then by
all means use 'void *' as a kind of generic and type-independent "byte
pointer". That is how it is meant to be used in the gcc extension.

And no, nobody should ever use -Wpointer-arith on the kernel in
general. Our use of it is not _hugely_ common, but it's does exist,
and it's not really frowned upon.

                    Linus
diff mbox series

Patch

diff --git a/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/htt_rx.c b/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/htt_rx.c
index 9ad64ca84beb..e01efcd2ce06 100644
--- a/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/htt_rx.c
+++ b/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/htt_rx.c
@@ -429,7 +429,7 @@  static int ath10k_htt_rx_amsdu_pop(struct ath10k_htt *htt,
 				RX_MSDU_END_INFO0_LAST_MSDU;
 
 		/* FIXME: why are we skipping the first part of the rx_desc? */
-		trace_ath10k_htt_rx_desc(ar, rx_desc + sizeof(u32),
+		trace_ath10k_htt_rx_desc(ar, (void*)rx_desc + sizeof(u32),
 					 hw->rx_desc_ops->rx_desc_size - sizeof(u32));
 
 		if (last_msdu)