Re: [PATCH RFC 02/16] clk: Acquire resources for clock transitions

[Konrad Dybcio]

On 10/23/26 12:35 PM, Jerome Brunet wrote:
>> Preparing a clock protects its current requirements, not the resources
>> needed while changing its rate or parent. A transition can temporarily
>> use both parents or access an unprepared clock, and a parent rate change
>> can cause other clocks to be programmed too. Raising resources one clock
>> at a time leaves those operations exposed to insufficient power.
>>
>> Failures make this worse: hardware may already have changed when the
>> operation returns an error. A matching cached rate is then not proof
>> that resource reconciliation finished. Retaining a temporary enable
>> reference without a corresponding prepare reference also breaks a
>> consumer's normal disable/unprepare sequence after a failed reparent.
>>
>> Make CCF acquire the affected tree's and parent paths' resources before
>> notifiers or programming, and reconcile them only when the walk stops.
>> Keep fault recovery independent of rate shortcuts and subsequent
>> consumer reference-count changes. Require explicit recovery of an
>> ancestor's uncertain parent selection rather than reporting success
>> from a descendant request.
> 
> I don't think all this is necessary to address the problem described
> here and in the cover letter.
> 
> IMO a new provider API is the wrong layer. The framework already has
> the hook a provider needs: the rate change notifiers. What the core
> should do instead is fix those notifiers, which do have a few issues.
> You are fixing one in patch 1. Another fix, about setting the parent,
> was sent recently:
> 
> https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-clk/patch/20261021-submit-clk-parent-abort-v1-v1-1-2936181822fc@xxxxxxxxx/
> 
> You want to act on some changes before anything is programmed. PRE
> notifiers are the right tool for this. The user of this change in
> patch 7 could use them AFAICT: PRE sets a temporary vote, POST settles
> it, ABORT drops it.
> 
> Also, what is acquired here follows the requested clock. When an
> ancestor switches parent, the chain of its new parent is not acquired,
> although it feeds the whole subtree after the switch.
> 
> With notifiers, the parent fault state is not needed either. As it is,
> it blocks every request on or below the clock until the same switch is
> retried.
> 
> Could you tell me what you need from this approach that cannot be done
> with (fixed) notifiers?

I'm a little worried about the ordering there, since some device
drivers may also be registering listeners in parallel, so we don't
get a clean split of what PRE means ("has power for sure " or "may
not have power")

Konrad