Re: Cannot hot remove a memory device

[Toshi Kani]

On Tue, 2013-08-13 at 14:02 +0200, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> On Monday, August 12, 2013 07:02:44 PM Toshi Kani wrote:
> > On Tue, 2013-08-13 at 02:45 +0200, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> > > On Monday, August 12, 2013 02:40:43 PM Toshi Kani wrote:
> > > > On Sun, 2013-08-11 at 23:13 +0200, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> > > > > On Thursday, August 08, 2013 04:50:42 PM Toshi Kani wrote:
> > > > > > On Fri, 2013-08-09 at 00:12 +0200, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> > > > > > > On Thursday, August 08, 2013 11:15:20 AM Toshi Kani wrote:
> > > > > > > > On Fri, 2013-08-02 at 18:04 -0600, Toshi Kani wrote:
> > > > > > > > > On Sat, 2013-08-03 at 01:43 +0200, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > On Friday, August 02, 2013 03:46:15 PM Toshi Kani wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > > On Thu, 2013-08-01 at 23:43 +0200, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> > > > > > > >  :
> > > > > > > > > > > I think it fails with -EINVAL at the place with dev_warn(dev, "ACPI
> > > > > > > > > > > handle is already set\n").  When two ACPI memory objects associate with
> > > > > > > > > > > a same memory block, the bind procedure of the 2nd ACPI memory object
> > > > > > > > > > > sees that ACPI_HANDLE(dev) is already set to the 1st ACPI memory object.
> > > > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > > > That sound's plausible, but I wonder how we can fix that?
> > > > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > > > There's no way for a single physical device to have two different ACPI
> > > > > > > > > > "companions".  It looks like the memory blocks should be 64 M each in that
> > > > > > > > > > case.  Or we need to create two child devices for each memory block and
> > > > > > > > > > associate each of them with an ACPI object.  That would lead to complications
> > > > > > > > > > in the user space interface, though.
> > > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > > Right.  Even bigger issue is that I do not think __add_pages() and
> > > > > > > > > __remove_pages() can add / delete a memory chunk that is less than
> > > > > > > > > 128MB.  128MB is the granularity of them.  So, we may just have to fail
> > > > > > > > > this case gracefully.
> > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > FYI: I have submitted the patch blow to close this part of the issue...
> > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/8/8/396
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > That looks good to me, but we'd still need to make it possible to have
> > > > > > > memory blocks smaller than 128 MB ...
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Do you mean acpi_bind_one() needs to be able to handle such case?  If
> > > > > > so, it should not be a problem since a memory block device won't be
> > > > > > created when add_memory() fails with the change above.  So, there is no
> > > > > > binding to be done.  If you mean add_memory() needs to be able to handle
> > > > > > a smaller range, that's quite a tough one unless we make the section
> > > > > > size smaller.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > BTW, when add_memory() fails, the memory hot-add request still succeeds
> > > > > > with no driver attached.  This seems logical, but the added device is
> > > > > > useless when no handler is attached.  And it does not allow ejecting the
> > > > > > device with no handler.  I am not too worry about this since this is a
> > > > > > rare case, but it reminded me that the framework won't handle rollback.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I'm not sure which rollback you mean.  During removal?
> > > > 
> > > > I meant rollback during hot-add.  Ideally, a device should be either
> > > > added in usable state (success) or failed back to the original state
> > > > (rollback).  Added in un-usable state is not really a success for users,
> > > > and creates an odd state to deal with.  But it is still a LOT better
> > > > than crashing the system.  So, I think this outcome is reasonable on
> > > > this framework because adding rollback at this point will complicate the
> > > > things unnecessarily.
> > > > 
> > > > > There are two slight problems here in my view.  First, even if the device
> > > > > cannot be ejected directly, it still will be removed when its parent is
> > > > > ejected, so it may be more consistent to just allow everything to be ejected
> > > > > regardless of whether or not it has a scan handler.  
> > > > 
> > > > Agreed.
> > > > 
> > > > > Second, I guess the
> > > > > removal is undesirable for memory devices for which the registration of the
> > > > > scan handler failed, so it would be good to fail the "offline" of such devices
> > > > > regardless of how we get there.  That's why I thought it would be good to have
> > > > > an "offline disabled" flag in struct acpi_device.
> > > > 
> > > > I see.  But when attach() failed, the memory device may not be used by
> > > > the kernel.  So, I think it should be safe to remove it.
> > > 
> > > The failure of .attach() need not mean that the memory is not used by the
> > > kernel, though, and the ACPI device object is still there and still may
> > > be involved in some removal scenarios (through its parent).
> > 
> > As long as .attach() is failed cleanly, which I think is the case for
> > the memory handler (if not, we need to fix it), the rest of the kernel
> > code may not know what this device is.  That is, the ACPI memory handler
> > is the only one that knows PNP0C80 is a memory device.  So, I do not
> > think the memory can be used in such case...
> 
> Yes, it can, if the kernel discovers it during boot before .attach() is first
> called.  So say this happens and the ACPI memory device object has a parent
> with existing _EJ0.
> 
> The memory handler's .attach() fails, so the initial acpi_bus_scan() won't walk
> the namespace below the memory device, but it won't return an error code
> either (the root device object is always there).  The parent of the failed
> node is regarded as operational in particular.
> 
> Now, acpi_scan_hot_remove() is called for the parent.  Since the memory device
> object doesn't have "physical" devices associated with it,
> acpi_bus_offline_companions() will ignore it and acpi_scan_hot_remove() will go
> for acpi_bus_trim() and straight for _EJ0 for the parent.  Splat!
> 
> I agree that this is a corner case, but I wonder if leaving it this way is a
> good idea. :-)

Oh, I see.  In practice, this case is unlikely to happen because
add_memory() fails with -EEXIST at the beginning during boot-time, and
is essentially a no-op.  But I agree with your point that such case may
happen and is safer to not allow ejecting a device with no handler.  A
system crash is much worse than not being able to eject.       

Thanks,
-Toshi

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