Re: [PATCH 0/2] PCI: Workaround for bus reset on Cavium cn8xxx root ports

[Jon Masters]

Following up on this thread...

On 05/23/2017 06:15 PM, Alex Williamson wrote:
> On Tue, 23 May 2017 14:22:01 -0700
> David Daney <ddaney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
>> On 05/23/2017 02:04 PM, Alex Williamson wrote:
>>> On Tue, 23 May 2017 15:47:50 -0500
>>> Bjorn Helgaas <helgaas@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>   
>>>> On Mon, May 15, 2017 at 05:17:34PM -0700, David Daney wrote:  
>>>>> With the recent improvements in arm64 and vfio-pci, we are seeing
>>>>> failures like this (on cn8890 based systems):
>>>>>
>>>>> [  235.622361] Unhandled fault: synchronous external abort (0x96000210) at 0xfffffc00c1000100
>>>>> [  235.630625] Internal error: : 96000210 [#1] PREEMPT SMP
>>>>> .
>>>>> .
>>>>> .
>>>>> [  236.208820] [<fffffc0008411250>] pci_generic_config_read+0x38/0x9c
>>>>> [  236.214992] [<fffffc0008435ed4>] thunder_pem_config_read+0x54/0x1e8
>>>>> [  236.221250] [<fffffc0008411620>] pci_bus_read_config_dword+0x74/0xa0
>>>>> [  236.227596] [<fffffc000841853c>] pci_find_next_ext_capability.part.15+0x40/0xb8
>>>>> [  236.234896] [<fffffc0008419428>] pci_find_ext_capability+0x20/0x30
>>>>> [  236.241068] [<fffffc0008423e2c>] pci_restore_vc_state+0x34/0x88
>>>>> [  236.246979] [<fffffc000841af3c>] pci_restore_state.part.37+0x2c/0x1fc
>>>>> [  236.253410] [<fffffc000841b174>] pci_dev_restore+0x4c/0x50
>>>>> [  236.258887] [<fffffc000841b19c>] pci_bus_restore+0x24/0x4c
>>>>> [  236.264362] [<fffffc000841c2dc>] pci_try_reset_bus+0x7c/0xa0
>>>>> [  236.270021] [<fffffc00060a1ab0>] vfio_pci_ioctl+0xc34/0xc3c [vfio_pci]
>>>>> [  236.276547] [<fffffc0005eb0410>] vfio_device_fops_unl_ioctl+0x20/0x30 [vfio]
>>>>> [  236.283587] [<fffffc000824b314>] do_vfs_ioctl+0xac/0x744
>>>>> [  236.288890] [<fffffc000824ba30>] SyS_ioctl+0x84/0x98
>>>>> [  236.293846] [<fffffc0008082ca0>] __sys_trace_return+0x0/0x4
>>>>>
>>>>> These are caused by the inability of the PCIe root port and Intel
>>>>> e1000e to sucessfully do a bus reset.

Right now, we have a whole bunch of systems in our labs and across the
industry where people are testing VFIO on Cavium ThunderX platforms. It
is amazing how many people have e1000 cards lying around (this is even
more popular on ARM servers because things like Tianocore usually "just
work" with an e1000 card installed...). I know I have many more e1000s
than I do x86 systems. So we need a solution to not crash on use.

>>>>> The proposed fix is to not do a bus reset on these systems.

It's not the best solution, but it's a solution, and there are plenty of
other quirks. I would like to see us figure out a sensible path to
perhaps take this patch now and continue researching to determine
whether there's an even better option later.

The reasons I say this are:

1). It will take some time for various teams with protocol analyzers to
determine which end is not fully spec compliant, while in the interim
everyone has to carry this patch or some other nasty hack anyway.

2). I have an even worse patch in my test kernels (just disable reset
for every device, which is nasty) and I'm sure I'm not alone. It would
be better (IMO) to confine the lack of reset to a subset of devices.

<snip>

> My hope would be that such analysis would help us understand what's
> really happening and perhaps present a less drastic workaround.  Is the
> point at which we crash simply the first read from the device?  Is the
> link state shown as stable at this point?  Is there any chance that we
> have a timing issue and an additional delay could resolve it?  Is there
> some manipulation of the link state before or after the bus reset that
> produces different results?  If such options have been exhausted, then
> I guess I have no objection, or at least no better solution, and I'll
> keep an eye out for any fallout.  Thanks,

My understanding is that various teams have already spent man months of
time with protocol analyzer equipment trying to figure out who is at
"fault". I have no reason not to believe that they don't intend to
continue that work, since they certainly want to ensure future root port
implementations are event more robust in the presence of both fully
compliant, and also somewhat compliant endpoints. If David affirms that
the work will continue, can we take this for now?

Jon.