Date:   Mon, 2 Jul 2018 09:52:41 -0500
From:   "Alex G." <mr.nuke.me@...il.com>
To:     Bjorn Helgaas <helgaas@...nel.org>
Cc:     bhelgaas@...gle.com, keith.busch@...el.com,
        alex_gagniuc@...lteam.com, austin_bolen@...l.com,
        shyam_iyer@...l.com, Frederick Lawler <fred@...dlawl.com>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Oza Pawandeep <poza@...eaurora.org>, linux-pci@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-acpi@...r.kernel.org,
        Borislav Petkov <bp@...e.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] PCI/AER: Fix aerdrv loading with "pcie_ports=native"
 parameter



On 07/02/2018 08:16 AM, Bjorn Helgaas wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 30, 2018 at 11:39:00PM -0500, Alex G wrote:
>> On 06/30/2018 04:31 PM, Bjorn Helgaas wrote:
>>> [+cc Borislav, linux-acpi, since this involves APEI/HEST]
>>
>> Borislav is not the relevant maintainer here, since we're not contingent on
>> APEI handling. I think Keith has a lot more experience with this part of the
>> kernel.
> 
> Thanks for adding Keith.
> 
>>> On Tue, Jun 19, 2018 at 02:58:20PM -0500, Alexandru Gagniuc wrote:
>>>> According to the documentation, "pcie_ports=native", linux should use
>>>> native AER and DPC services. While that is true for the _OSC method
>>>> parsing, this is not the only place that is checked. Should the HEST
>>>> table list PCIe ports as firmware-first, linux will not use native
>>>> services.
>>>
>>> Nothing in ACPI-land looks at pcie_ports_native.  How should ACPI
>>> things work in the "pcie_ports=native" case?  I guess we still have to
>>> expect to receive error records from the firmware, because it may
>>> certainly send us non-PCI errors (machine checks, etc) and maybe even
>>> some PCI errors (even if the Linux AER driver claims AER interrupts,
>>> we don't know what notification mechanisms the firmware may be using).
>>
>> I think ACPI land shouldn't care about this. We care about it from the PCIe
>> stand point at the interface with ACPI. FW might see a delta in the sense
>> that we request control of some features via _OSC, which we otherwise would
>> not do without pcie_ports=native.
>>
>>> I guess best-case, we'll get ACPI error records for all non-PCI
>>> things, and the Linux AER driver will see all the AER errors.
>>
>> It might affect FW's ability to catch errors, but that's dependent on the
>> root port implementation.
>>
>>> Worst-case, I don't really know what to expect.  Duplicate reporting
>>> of AER errors via firmware and Linux AER driver?  Some kind of
>>> confusion about who acknowledges and clears them?
>>
>> Once user enters pcie_ports=native, all bets are off: you broke the contract
>> you have with the FW -- whether or not you have this patch.
>>
>>> Out of curiosity, what is your use case for "pcie_ports=native"?
>>> Presumably there's something that works better when using it, and
>>> things work even *better* with this patch?
>>
>> Corectness. It bothers me that actual behavior does not match the
>> documentation:
>>
>>  native  Use native PCIe services associated with PCIe ports
>>                         unconditionally.
>>
>>
>>> I know people do use it, because I often see it mentioned in forums
>>> and bug reports, but I really don't expect it to work very well
>>> because we're ignoring the usage model the firmware is designed
>>> around.  My unproven suspicion is that most uses are in the black
>>> magic category of "there's a bug here, and we don't know how to fix
>>> it, but pcie_ports=native makes it work better".
>>
>> There exist cases that firmware didn't consider. I would not call them
>> "firmware bugs", but there are cases where the user understands the platform
>> better than firmware.
>> Example: on certain PCIe switches, a hardware PCIe error may bring the
>> switch downstream ports into a state where they stop notifying hotplug
>> events. Depending on the platform, firmware may or may not fix this
>> condition, but "pcie_ports=native" enables DPC. DPC contains the error
>> without the switch downstream port entering the weird error state in the
>> first place.
>>
>> All bets are off at this point.
> 
> If a user needs "pcie_ports=native", I claim that's a user experience
> problem, and the underlying cause is a hardware, firmware, or OS
> defect.
> 
> I have no doubt the situation you describe is real, but this doesn't
> make any progress toward resolving the user experience problem.  In
> fact, it propagates the folklore that using "pcie_ports=native" is an
> appropriate final solution.  It's fine as a temporary workaround while
> we figure out a better solution, but we need some mechanism for
> analyzing the problem and eventually removing the need to use
> "pcie_ports=native".

Speaking of user experience, I'd argue that it's a horrible experience
for the kernel to _not_ do what it is asked.

I'm going to go fix the little comment about the patch. I had the same
dilemma when I wrote it, but didn't find it too noteworthy. It makes
more sense now that you mentioned it.

Alex

> I have a minor comment on the patch, but I think it makes sense.  This
> might be a good time to resurrect Prarit's "taint-on-pci-parameters"
> patch.  If somebody uses "pcie_ports=native", I think it makes sense
> to taint the kernel both because (1) we broke the contract with the
> firmware and we don't really know what to expect, and (2) it's an
> opportunity to encourage the user to raise a bug report.
> 
> Bjorn
> 

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