linux-kernel - Regarding AHCI_MAX_SG and (ATA_HORKAGE_MAX_SEC

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:	Sun, 7 Aug 2016 22:10:17 +0800
From:	Tom Yan <tom.ty89@...il.com>
To:	linux-ide@...r.kernel.org, Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>,
	dmilburn@...hat.com
Cc:	linux-scsi@...r.kernel.org, linux-block@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Regarding AHCI_MAX_SG and (ATA_HORKAGE_MAX_SEC_1024)

So the (not so) recent bump of BLK_DEF_MAX_SECTORS from 1024 to 2560
(commit d2be537c3ba3) seemed to have caused trouble to some of the ATA
devices, which were then worked around with ATA_HORKAGE_MAX_SEC_1024.

However, I am suspecting that the bump of BLK_DEF_MAX_SECTORS is not
the "real" cause of the trouble, but the fact that AHCI_MAX_SG has
been set to a weird value of 168 (with a comment "hardware max is
64K", which neither seem to make any sense).

AHCI_MAX_SG is used to set the sg_tablesize (i.e. max_segments,
apparently), which is apparently used to derive the actual "request
size" (that is, if it is lower than max_sectors(_kb), it will be the
limiting factor instead).

For example, no matter if the drive has max_sectors set to 2560, or to
65535 (by adding it as the Optimal Transfer Length to libata's SATL,
which is also max_hw_sectors that is set from ATA_MAX_SECTORS_LBA48),
"avgrq-sz" in `iostat` will be capped at 1344 (168 * 8).

However, if I change AHCI_MAX_SG to 128 (which is also the
sg_tablesize set in libata.h from LIBATA_MAX_PRD), "avgrq-sz" in
`iostat` will be capped at 1024 (128 * 8), which should make
ATA_HORKAGE_MAX_SEC_1024 unnecessary.

So why has AHCI_MAX_SG been set to 168 anyway?