Date:   Tue, 28 Mar 2017 14:07:30 +0100
From:   Marc Zyngier <marc.zyngier@....com>
To:     Daniel Lezcano <daniel.lezcano@...aro.org>
Cc:     linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com>,
        Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@....com>,
        Will Deacon <will.deacon@....com>,
        Scott Wood <oss@...error.net>,
        Hanjun Guo <hanjun.guo@...aro.org>,
        Ding Tianhong <dingtianhong@...wei.com>,
        dann frazier <dann.frazier@...onical.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 06/18] arm64: arch_timer: Add infrastructure for
 multiple erratum detection methods

On 27/03/17 08:56, Daniel Lezcano wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 01:51:47PM +0000, Marc Zyngier wrote:
> 
> [ ... ]
> 
>>> Hi Marc,
>>>
>>> I have been through the driver after applying the patchset. Again thanks for
>>> taking care of this. It is not a simple issue to solve, so here is my minor
>>> contribution.
>>>
>>> The resulting code sounds like over-engineered because the errata check and its
>>> workaround are done at the same place/moment, that forces to deal with an array
>>> with element from different origin.
>>>
>>> I understand you wanted to create a single array to handle the errata
>>> information from the DT, ACPI and CAPS. But IMHO, it does not fit well.
>>>
>>> I would suggest to create 3 arrays: ACPI, DT and CAPS.
>>>
>>> Those arrays contains the errata id *and* an unique private id.
>>>
>>> At boot time, you go through the corresponding array and fill a list of
>>> detected errata with the private id.
>>>
>>> On the other side, an array with the private id and its workaround makes the
>>> assocation. The private id is the contract between the errata and the workaround.
>>>
>>> So the errata handling will occur in two steps:
>>>  1. Boot => errata detection
>>>  2. CPU up => workaround put in place
>>>
>>> With this approach, you can write everything on a per cpu basis, getting rid of
>>> 'global' / 'local'.
>>>
>>> What is this different from your approach ?
>>>
>>>  - no match_id
>>>  - clear separation of errata and workaround
>>>  - Simpler code
>>>  - clear the scene for a more generic errata framework
>>>
>>> That said, now it would make sense to create a generic errata framework to be
>>> filled by the different arch at boot time and retrieve from the different
>>> subsystem in an agnostic way. Well, may be that is a long term suggestion.
>>>
>>> What do you think ?
>>
>> I don't think this buys us anything at all. Separating detection and
>> enablement is not always feasible. In your example above, you assume
>> that all errata are detectable at boot time. Consider that with CPU
>> hotplug, we can bring up a new core at any time, possibly with an
>> erratum that you haven't detected yet.
> 
> I guess it has to pass through an init function before being powered on.

Sure, I never said that the CPU would appear ex-nihilo. But that
somewhat defeats your boot detection vs workaround application construct.

>> And even then, what do we get: we trade a simple match ID for a list we
>> build at runtime, another private ID, and additional code to perform
>> that match. The gain is not obvious to me...
>>
>> What would such a generic errata framework look like? A table containing
>> match functions returning a boolean, used to decide whether you need to
>> call yet another function with a bunch of arbitrary parameters.
>>
>> In my experience, such a framework will be either an empty shell
>> (because you need to keep it as generic as possible), or will be riddled
>> with data structures ending up being the union of all the possible cases
>> you've encountered in the kernel. Not a pretty sight.
> 
> I disagree but I can understand you don't see the point to write a generic
> framework while the patchset does the job.

It is not about this series. Far from it. I'm convinced that a generic
errata framework cannot be written without being either completely
devoid of any useful semantic, or be the union of all possible
semantics. There is simply too much diversity in the problem space. But
feel free to prove me wrong! ;-)

> Let's refocus on the patchset itself.
> 
> Can you do the change to have a percpu basis errata in order to remove
> local/global ?
> 
> Something as below:
> 
>  
>  static
> -bool arch_timer_check_global_cap_erratum(const struct arch_timer_erratum_workaround *wa,
> -					 const void *arg)
> +bool arch_timer_check_cap_erratum(const struct arch_timer_erratum_workaround *wa,
> +				  const void *arg)
>  {
> -	return cpus_have_cap((uintptr_t)wa->id);
> +	return cpus_have_cap((uintptr_t)wa->id) | this_cpu_has_cap((uintptr_t)wa->id);

Not quite. Here, you're making all capability-based errata to be be
global (if a single CPU in the system has a capability, then by
transitivity cpus_have_cap returns true). If that's a big-little system,
you end-up applying the workaround to all CPUs, including those unaffected.

I'd rather drop cpus_have_cap altogether and rely on individual CPU
matching (since we don't have a need for a global capability erratum
handling yet).

Thanks,

	M.
-- 
Jazz is not dead. It just smells funny...

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