Re: [RFC PATCH 00/11] Hot-plug and Online/Offline framework

[Toshi Kani]

On Wed, 2012-12-12 at 16:55 -0800, Greg KH wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 05:39:36PM -0700, Toshi Kani wrote:
> > On Wed, 2012-12-12 at 15:56 -0800, Greg KH wrote:
> > > On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 04:17:12PM -0700, Toshi Kani wrote:
> > > > This patchset is an initial prototype of proposed hot-plug framework
> > > > for design review.  The hot-plug framework is designed to provide 
> > > > the common framework for hot-plugging and online/offline operations
> > > > of system devices, such as CPU, Memory and Node.  While this patchset
> > > > only supports ACPI-based hot-plug operations, the framework itself is
> > > > designed to be platform-neural and can support other FW architectures
> > > > as necessary.
> > > > 
> > > > The patchset has not been fully tested yet, esp. for memory hot-plug.
> > > > Any help for testing will be very appreciated since my test setup
> > > > is limited.
> > > > 
> > > > The patchset is based on the linux-next branch of linux-pm.git tree.
> > > > 
> > > > Overview of the Framework
> > > > =========================
> > > 
> > > <snip>
> > > 
> > > Why all the new framework, doesn't the existing bus infrastructure
> > > provide everything you need here?  Shouldn't you just be putting your
> > > cpus and memory sticks on a bus and handle stuff that way?  What makes
> > > these types of devices so unique from all other devices that Linux has
> > > been handling in a dynamic manner (i.e. hotplugging them) for many many
> > > years?
> > > 
> > > Why are you reinventing the wheel?
> > 
> > Good question.  Yes, USB and PCI hotplug operate based on their bus
> > structures.  USB and PCI cards only work under USB and PCI bus
> > controllers.  So, their framework can be composed within the bus
> > structures as you pointed out.
> > 
> > However, system devices such CPU and memory do not have their standard
> > bus.  ACPI allows these system devices to be enumerated, but it does not
> > make ACPI as the HW bus hierarchy for CPU and memory, unlike PCI and
> > USB.  Therefore, CPU and memory modules manage CPU and memory outside of
> > ACPI.  This makes sense because CPU and memory can be used without ACPI.
> > 
> > This leads us an issue when we try to manage system device hotplug
> > within ACPI, because ACPI does not control everything.  This patchset
> > provides a common hotplug framework for system devices, which both ACPI
> > and non-ACPI modules (i.e. CPU and memory modules) can participate and
> > are coordinated for their hotplug operations.  This is analogous to the
> > boot-up sequence, which ACPI and non-ACPI modules can participate to
> > enable CPU and memory.
> 
> Then create a "virtual" bus and put the devices you wish to control on
> that.  That is what the "system bus" devices were supposed to be, it's
> about time someone took that code and got it all working properly in
> this way, that is why it was created oh so long ago.

It may be the ideal, but it will take us great effort to make such
things to happen based on where we are now.  It is going to be a long
way.  I believe the first step is to make the boot-up flow and hot-plug
flow consistent for system devices.  This is what this patchset is
trying to do.

Thanks,
-Toshi


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