linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH] dma-iommu: Add iommu_dma_max_mapping

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Date:   Tue, 17 May 2022 12:26:21 +0100
From:   John Garry <john.garry@...wei.com>
To:     Robin Murphy <robin.murphy@....com>, <joro@...tes.org>,
        <will@...nel.org>, <hch@....de>, <m.szyprowski@...sung.com>
CC:     <chenxiang66@...ilicon.com>, <thunder.leizhen@...wei.com>,
        <iommu@...ts.linux-foundation.org>, <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        <liyihang6@...ilicon.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH] dma-iommu: Add iommu_dma_max_mapping_size()

On 17/05/2022 11:40, Robin Murphy wrote:
> On 2022-05-16 14:06, John Garry wrote:
>> For streaming DMA mappings involving an IOMMU and whose IOVA len 
>> regularly
>> exceeds the IOVA rcache upper limit (meaning that they are not cached),
>> performance can be reduced.
>>
>> Add the IOMMU callback for DMA mapping API dma_max_mapping_size(), which
>> allows the drivers to know the mapping limit and thus limit the requested
>> IOVA lengths.
>>
>> This resolves the performance issue originally reported in [0] for a SCSI
>> HBA driver which was regularly mapping SGLs which required IOVAs in
>> excess of the IOVA caching limit. In this case the block layer limits the
>> max sectors per request - as configured in __scsi_init_queue() - which
>> will limit the total SGL length the driver tries to map and in turn 
>> limits
>> IOVA lengths requested.
>>
>> [0] 
>> https://lore.kernel.org/linux-iommu/20210129092120.1482-1-thunder.leizhen@huawei.com/ 
>>
>>
>> Signed-off-by: John Garry <john.garry@...wei.com>
>> ---
>> Sending as an RFC as iommu_dma_max_mapping_size() is a soft limit, and 
>> not
>> a hard limit which I expect is the semantics of 
>> dma_map_ops.max_mapping_size
> 
> Indeed, sorry but NAK for this being nonsense. As I've said at least 
> once before, if the unnecessary SAC address allocation attempt slows 
> down your workload, make it not do that in the first place. If you don't 
> like the existing command-line parameter then fine, > there are plenty of
> other options, it just needs to be done in a way that doesn't break x86 
> systems with dodgy firmware, as my first attempt turned out to.

Sorry, but I am not interested in this. It was discussed in Jan last 
year without any viable solution.

Anyway we still have the long-term IOVA aging issue, and requesting 
non-cached IOVAs is involved in that. So I would rather keep the SCSI 
driver to requesting cached IOVAs all the time.

I did try to do it the other way around - configuring the IOVA caching 
range according to the drivers requirement but that got nowhere.

> 
> Furthermore, if a particular SCSI driver doesn't benefit from mappings 
> larger than 256KB, then that driver is also free to limit its own 
> mapping size. There are other folks out there with use-cases for mapping 
> *gigabytes* at once; you don't get to cripple the API and say that 
> that's suddenly not allowed just because it happens to make your thing 
> go faster, that's absurd.

I'd say less catastrophically slow, not faster.

So how to inform the SCSI driver of this caching limit then so that it 
may limit the SGL length?

Thanks,
John