Re: [PATCH] scsi: isci: initialize shost fully before calling scsi_add_host()

[John Garry]

On 12/01/2019 02:34, Martin K. Petersen wrote:
> John,
>
> > So how about just drop these APIs and let the user set the shost
> > protection parameters directly, like other shost parameters,
>
> The protection interfaces here obviously predate the block layer
> allocation changes that made this particular issue pop up.
>
> > which should make it a bit clearer when these should be set,
> > i.e. before scsi_add_host()?
>
> In general, I am not so keen on the somewhat messy intersection between
> the host parameters and the host template. The static host templates
> made lots of sense in the days of Seagate ST01 and fixed hardware
> capabilities.  But reality is that most modern controllers have to query
> firmware interfaces to figure out what their actual capabilities are.

Hi Martin,

I am not suggested setting the parameters via scsi host template, but 
rather dynamically (as we currently do) but just drop the set helper 
functions, like:

    shost->max_channel = 1;
    shost->max_cmd_len = 16;

    ...

    if (hisi_hba->prot_mask) {
        dev_info(dev, "Registering for DIF/DIX prot_mask=0x%x\n",
             prot_mask);
-        scsi_host_set_prot(hisi_hba->shost, prot_mask);
+        shost->prot_capabilities = prot_mask;
    }

    rc = scsi_add_host(shost, dev);
    if (rc)
        goto err_out_ha;

    rc = sas_register_ha(sha);
    if (rc)
        goto err_out_register_ha;

I find that it is not crystal clear when scsi_host_set_prot() and 
scsi_host_set_guard() should be called, but not so for setting the shost 
parameters directly, which is common.

> So in this case I think that accessor functions are actually better
> because they allow us to print a big fat warning when you twiddle
> something you shouldn't post-initialization. So that's something I think
> we could--and should--improve.

Sure, this is an alternative, but I would rather make it obvious when 
these parameters should be set so that this would not be required.

Thanks,
John