Thread (8 messages) 8 messages, 6 authors, 2016-12-21

Re: [PATCH] ibmvscsi: add write memory barrier to CRQ processing

From: Tyrel Datwyler <hidden>
Date: 2016-12-21 17:35:30
Also in: linux-scsi

On 12/09/2016 01:20 PM, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
On Wed, 2016-12-07 at 17:31 -0600, Tyrel Datwyler wrote:
quoted
The first byte of each CRQ entry is used to indicate whether an entry is
a valid response or free for the VIOS to use. After processing a
response the driver sets the valid byte to zero to indicate the entry is
now free to be reused. Add a memory barrier after this write to ensure
no other stores are reordered when updating the valid byte.
Which "other stores" specifically ? This smells fishy without that
precision. It's important to always understand what exactly barriers
order with.
So, this patch initially came about while chasing a data integrity issue
based on the observation that we were already doing this same write
barrier in the virtual fibre channel driver.

However, the more I stare at it I agree it does seem fishy and I can't
see any other stores that we need to order with here. In terms of the
16byte CRQ entries we only ever write to the first byte as a sort of
doorbell to tell the VIOS that we have processed the data and the entry
is free to be re-used. The remainder of the CRQ is only ever read from.

The wmb() in the ibmvfc driver was part of a commit from Brian that also
involved a necessary rmb() that prevented stale data from load
re-ordering by ensuring that a read from the first byte completed and
contained a valid value prior to doing any other reads of the CRQ entry.

I'd have to defer to Brian as to whether he remembers a legitimate
reason for the wmb().

-Tyrel
Cheers,
Ben.
quoted
Signed-off-by: Tyrel Datwyler <redacted>
---
 drivers/scsi/ibmvscsi/ibmvscsi.c | 2 ++
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)
diff --git a/drivers/scsi/ibmvscsi/ibmvscsi.c b/drivers/scsi/ibmvscsi/ibmvscsi.c
index d9534ee..2f5b07e 100644
--- a/drivers/scsi/ibmvscsi/ibmvscsi.c
+++ b/drivers/scsi/ibmvscsi/ibmvscsi.c
@@ -232,6 +232,7 @@ static void ibmvscsi_task(void *data)
quoted
 		while ((crq = crq_queue_next_crq(&hostdata->queue)) != NULL) {
 			ibmvscsi_handle_crq(crq, hostdata);
 			crq->valid = VIOSRP_CRQ_FREE;
+			wmb();
 		}
 
quoted
 		vio_enable_interrupts(vdev);
@@ -240,6 +241,7 @@ static void ibmvscsi_task(void *data)
quoted
 			vio_disable_interrupts(vdev);
 			ibmvscsi_handle_crq(crq, hostdata);
 			crq->valid = VIOSRP_CRQ_FREE;
+			wmb();
 		} else {
 			done = 1;
 		}
--
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