Guenter,

On Tue, Aug 19, 2014 at 5:45 PM, Guenter Roeck [off-list ref] wrote:

Various drivers implement architecture and/or device specific means
to restart (reset) the system. Various mechanisms have been implemented
to support those schemes. The best known mechanism is arm_pm_restart,
which is a function pointer to be set either from platform specific code
or from drivers. Another mechanism is to use hardware watchdogs to issue
a reset; this mechanism is used if there is no other method available
to reset a board or system. Two examples are alim7101_wdt, which currently
uses the reboot notifier to trigger a reset, and moxart_wdt, which registers
the arm_pm_restart function.

The existing mechanisms have a number of drawbacks. Typically only one scheme
to restart the system is supported (at least if arm_pm_restart is used).
At least in theory there can be multiple means to restart the system, some of
which may be less desirable (for example one mechanism may only reset the CPU,
while another may reset the entire system). Using arm_pm_restart can also be
racy if the function pointer is set from a driver, as the driver may be in
the process of being unloaded when arm_pm_restart is called.
Using the reboot notifier is always racy, as it is unknown if and when
other functions using the reboot notifier have completed execution
by the time the watchdog fires.

Introduce a system restart handler call chain to solve the described problems.
This call chain is expected to be executed from the architecture specific
machine_restart() function. Drivers providing system restart functionality
(such as the watchdog drivers mentioned above) are expected to register
with this call chain. By using the priority field in the notifier block,
callers can control restart handler execution sequence and thus ensure that
the restart handler with the optimal restart capabilities for a given system
is called first.

Signed-off-by: Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>
Acked-by: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>
Acked-by: Heiko Stuebner <heiko@sntech.de>
---
v7: Rebased to v3.17-rc1
v6: Use atomic notifier call chain
v5: Function renames:
    register_restart_notifier -> register_restart_handler
    unregister_restart_notifier -> unregister_restart_handler
    kernel_restart_notify -> do_kernel_restart
v4: Document and suggest values for notifier priorities
v3: Add kernel_restart_notify wrapper function to execute notifier.
    Improve documentation.
    Move restart_notifier_list into kernel/reboot.c and make it static.
v2: No change.

 include/linux/reboot.h |  3 ++
 kernel/reboot.c        | 81 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 84 insertions(+)

Reviewed-by: Doug Anderson <dianders@chromium.org>
Tested-by: Doug Anderson <dianders@chromium.org>