Re: [PATCH v12 0/6] Address error and recovery for AER and DPC

[Bjorn Helgaas <helgaas@kernel.org>]

[+cc Alex]

On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 08:25:51AM -0600, Keith Busch wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 11:03:58PM -0400, Sinan Kaya wrote:
> > On 3/11/2018 6:03 PM, Bjorn Helgaas wrote:
> > > On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 10:34:11PM +0530, Oza Pawandeep wrote:
> > 
> > > That difference has been there since the beginning of DPC, so it has
> > > nothing to do with *this* series EXCEPT for the fact that it really
> > > complicates the logic you're adding to reset_link() and
> > > broadcast_error_message().
> > > 
> > > We ought to be able to simplify that somehow because the only real
> > > difference between AER and DPC should be that DPC automatically
> > > disables the link and AER does it in software.
> > 
> > I agree this should be possible. Code execution path should be almost
> > identical to fatal error case.
> > 
> > Is there any reason why you went to stop driver path, Keith?
> 
> The fact is the link is truly down during a DPC event. When the link
> is enabled again, you don't know at that point if the device(s) on the
> other side have changed.

When DPC is triggered, the port takes the link down.  When we handle
an uncorrectable (nonfatal or fatal) AER event, software takes the
link down.

In both cases, devices on the other side are at least reset.  Whenever
the link goes down, it's conceivable the device could be replaced with
a different one before the link comes back up.  Is this why you remove
and re-enumerate?  (See tangent [1] below.)

The point is that from the device's hardware perspective, these
scenarios are the same (it sent a ERR_NONFATAL or ERR_FATAL message
and it sees the link go down).  I think we should make them the same
on the software side, too: the driver should see the same callbacks,
in the same order, whether we're doing AER or DPC.

If removing and re-enumerating is the right thing for DPC, I think
that means it's also the right thing for AER.

Along this line, we had a question a while back about logging AER
information after a DPC trigger.  Obviously we can't collect any
logged information from the downstream devices while link is down, but
I noticed the AER status bits are RW1CS, which means they're sticky
and are not modified by hot reset or FLR.

So we may be able to read and log the AER information after the DPC
driver brings the link back up.  We may want to do the same with AER,
i.e., reset the downstream devices first, then collect the AER status
bits after the link comes back up.

> Calling a driver's error handler for the wrong device in an unknown
> state may have undefined results. Enumerating the slot from scratch
> should be safe, and will assign resources, tune bus settings, and
> bind to the matching driver.

I agree with this; I think this is heading toward doing
remove/re-enumerate on AER errors as well because it has also reset
the device.

> Per spec, DPC is the recommended way for handling surprise removal
> events and even recommends DPC capable slots *not* set 'Surprise'
> in Slot Capabilities so that removals are always handled by DPC. This
> service driver was developed with that use in mind.

Thanks for this tip.  The only thing I've found so far is the mention
of Surprise Down triggering DPC in the last paragraph of sec 6.7.5.
Are there other references I should look at?  I haven't found the
recommendation about not setting 'Surprise' in Slot Capabilities yet.

Bjorn

[1] Tangent: I have similar concerns with the device reset paths.  We
currently save some config state, reset the device, and restore the
config state.  It's theoretically possible that the device was
replaced or came up with different firmware after the reset, so I
would really prefer to remove and re-enumerate there, too.  But that
would make it hard for things up the stack that want to reset the
device but not re-setup the whole stack.

I wonder if DPC is going to cause trouble for that scenario.  That's
not an argument against DPC, but it might be a stronger reason to
figure out how to deal with remove/re-enumerate in those stacks.