netdev - Re: [RFD] Managed interrupt affinities [ Was: mlx5 broken affinity ]

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Date:   Mon, 13 Nov 2017 21:51:05 +0100 (CET)
From:   Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>
To:     Sagi Grimberg <sagi@...mberg.me>
cc:     Jens Axboe <axboe@...com>, Jes Sorensen <jsorensen@...com>,
        Tariq Toukan <tariqt@...lanox.com>,
        Saeed Mahameed <saeedm@....mellanox.co.il>,
        Networking <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        Leon Romanovsky <leonro@...lanox.com>,
        Saeed Mahameed <saeedm@...lanox.com>,
        Kernel Team <kernel-team@...com>,
        Christoph Hellwig <hch@....de>
Subject: Re: [RFD] Managed interrupt affinities [ Was: mlx5 broken affinity
 ]

On Mon, 13 Nov 2017, Sagi Grimberg wrote:
> > 3) Affinity override in managed mode
> > 
> >   Doable, but there are a couple of things to think about:
> 
> I think that it will be good to shoot for (3). Given that there are
> driver requirements I'd say that driver will expose up front if it can
> handle it, and if not we fallback to (1).
> 
> >    * How is this enabled?
> > 
> >      - Opt-in by driver
> > 	
> >      - Extra sysfs/procfs knob
> > 
> >      We definitely should not enable it per default because that would
> >      surprise users/drivers which work with the current managed devices and
> >      rely on the affinity files to be non writeable in managed mode.
> 
> Do you know if any exist? Would it make sense to have a survey to
> understand if anyone relies on it?
> 
> From what I've seen so far, drivers that were converted simply worked
> with the non-managed facility and didn't have any special code for it.
> Perhaps Christoph can comment as he convert most of them.
> 
> But if there aren't any drivers that absolutely rely on it, maybe its
> not a bad idea to allow it by default?

Sure, I was just cautious and I have to admit that I have no insight into
the driver side details.

> >    * When and how is the driver informed about the change?
> > 
> >       When:
> > 
> >         #1 Before the core tries to move the interrupt so it can veto the
> > 	  move if it cannot allocate new resources or whatever is required
> > 	  to operate after the move.
> 
> What would the core do if a driver veto a move?

Return the error code from write_affinity() as it does with any other error
which fails to set the affinity.

> I'm wandering in what conditions a driver will be unable to allocate
> resources for move to cpu X but able to allocate for move to cpu Y.

Node affine memory allocation is the only thing which comes to my mind, or
some decision not to have a gazillion of queues on a single CPU. 

> This looks like it can work to me, but I'm probably not familiar enough
> to see the full picture here.

On the interrupt core side this is workable, I just need the input from the
driver^Wsubsystem side if this can be implemented sanely.

Thanks,

	tglx