[PATCH 0/3 v2] e820: Fix handling of NvDIMM chips

From: Boaz Harrosh
Date: Mon Feb 23 2015 - 07:29:48 EST


Hi

[v2]
* Added warning at bring up about unknown type
* Added an extra patch to warn-print in request_resource
* changed name from NvDIMM-12 => unknown-12
I wish we would reconsider this. So we need to suffer until some unknown
future when ACPI decides to reuse type-12. When this happens we can fix
it then, NO?
* Now based on 4.0-rc1

If someone still has objections to [PATCH 3A/3] which is the most simple
thing to do, then We will be forced to do [PATCH 3B/3] ugliness. Ingo
your call.

[v1]
There is a deficiency in current e820.c handling where unknown new memory-chip
types come up as a BUSY resource when some other driver (like pmem) tries to
call request_mem_region_exclusive() on that resource. Even though, actually
there is nothing using it.
>From inspecting the code and the history of e820.c it looks like a BUG.

In any way this is a problem for the new type-12 NvDIMM memory chips that
are circulating around. (It is estimated that there are already 100ds of
thousands NvDIMM chips in active use)

The patches below first fixes the above problem for any future type
memory, so external drivers can access these mem chips.

I then also add the NvDIMM type-12 memory constant so it comes up
nice in dprints and at /proc/iomem

Just as before all these chips are very much usable with the pmem
driver. This lets us remove the hack for type-12 NvDIMMs that ignores
the return code from request_mem_region_exclusive() in pmem.c.

For all the pmem people. I maintain a tree with these patches
and latest pmem code here:
git://git.open-osd.org/pmem.git
[web-view:http://git.open-osd.org/gitweb.cgi?p=pmem.git;a=summary]

List of patches:
[PATCH 1/3] e820: Don't let unknown DIMM type come out BUSY
The main fix

[PATCH 2/3] resource: Add new flag IORESOURCE_WARN (64bit)
Warn in request_resource

[PATCH 3A/3] e820: Add the unknown-12 Memory type (DDR3-NvDIMM)
Please accept this simple patch

[PATCH 3B/3] e820: dynamic unknown-xxx names (for DDR3-NvDIMM)
Else we need this crap

Thanks
Boaz

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