linux-kernel - RE: [patch] scsi: use lock per host instead of per device for shared queue tag host

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Message-ID: <B70A50D07063384EB9BCE3330D18414F02F5AF9B@nonameb.ptu.promise.com>
Date:	Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:14:22 -0800
From:	"Ed Lin" <ed.lin@...mise.com>
To:	"David Somayajulu" <david.somayajulu@...gic.com>,
	"Michael Reed" <mdr@....com>
Cc:	"linux-scsi" <linux-scsi@...r.kernel.org>,
	"linux-kernel" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"james.Bottomley" <james.Bottomley@...elEye.com>,
	"jeff" <jeff@...zik.org>,
	"Promise_Linux" <Promise_Linux@...mise.com>,
	"Jens Axboe" <axboe@...nel.dk>
Subject: RE: [patch] scsi: use lock per host instead of per device for shared queue tag host



> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Somayajulu [mailto:david.somayajulu@...gic.com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 5:03 PM
> To: Ed Lin; Michael Reed
> Cc: linux-scsi; linux-kernel; james.Bottomley; jeff; 
> Promise_Linux; Jens Axboe
> Subject: RE: [patch] scsi: use lock per host instead of per 
> device for shared queue tag host
> 
> 
> > It seems another driver(qla4xxx) is also using shared queue tag.
> > It is natural to imagine there might be same symptom in that
> > driver. But I don't know the driver and have no hardware so I
> > can not say anything certain about it.
> 
> qla4xxx implements slightly differently, in the sense we 
> don't have the
> equivalent of         
> struct st_ccb ccb[MU_MAX_REQUEST]; 
> which is in struct st_hba. In other words we don't have a local array
> which like stex to keep track of the outstanding commands to the hba.
> 
> We had a discussion on this one while implementing block-layer tagging
> in qla4xxx and Jens Axboe added the test_and_set_bit() in the 
> following
> code in blk_queue_start_tag() to take care of it.
> 	do {
> 		tag = find_first_zero_bit(bqt->tag_map, bqt->max_depth);
> 		if (tag >= bqt->max_depth)
> 			return 1;
> 	} while (test_and_set_bit(tag, bqt->tag_map));
> Please see the following link for the discussion
> http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-scsi&m=115886351206726&w=2
> 
> Cheers
> David Somayajulu
> QLogic Corporation
>

Yes, this piece of code of allocating tag, in itself, is safe.
But the following

	if (unlikely(!__test_and_clear_bit(tag, bqt->tag_map))) {
		printk(KERN_ERR "%s: attempt to clear non-busy tag
(%d)\n",
		       __FUNCTION__, tag);
		return;
	}

code of freeing tag (in blk_queue_end_tag())seems to be using
unsafe __test_and_clear_bit instead of test_and_clear_bit.
I once changed it to test_and_clear_bit and thought it was fixed.
But the panic happened thereafter nonetheless(using gcc 3.4.6.
gcc 4.1.0 is better but still with kernel errors). bqt also needs
to be protected in this case. Replacing queue lock per device with
a host lock is a simple but logical fix for it. To introduce a
more refined lock is possible, but seems too tedious and elaborate
for this issue, since a queue lock is already out there, and a
hostwide lock is needed anyway.

Thanks,

Ed Lin
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