1 2 PCI Error Recovery 3 ------------------ 4 February 2, 2006 5 6 Current document maintainer: 7 Linas Vepstas <linas@austin.ibm.com> 8 9 10Many PCI bus controllers are able to detect a variety of hardware 11PCI errors on the bus, such as parity errors on the data and address 12busses, as well as SERR and PERR errors. Some of the more advanced 13chipsets are able to deal with these errors; these include PCI-E chipsets, 14and the PCI-host bridges found on IBM Power4 and Power5-based pSeries 15boxes. A typical action taken is to disconnect the affected device, 16halting all I/O to it. The goal of a disconnection is to avoid system 17corruption; for example, to halt system memory corruption due to DMA's 18to "wild" addresses. Typically, a reconnection mechanism is also 19offered, so that the affected PCI device(s) are reset and put back 20into working condition. The reset phase requires coordination 21between the affected device drivers and the PCI controller chip. 22This document describes a generic API for notifying device drivers 23of a bus disconnection, and then performing error recovery. 24This API is currently implemented in the 2.6.16 and later kernels. 25 26Reporting and recovery is performed in several steps. First, when 27a PCI hardware error has resulted in a bus disconnect, that event 28is reported as soon as possible to all affected device drivers, 29including multiple instances of a device driver on multi-function 30cards. This allows device drivers to avoid deadlocking in spinloops, 31waiting for some i/o-space register to change, when it never will. 32It also gives the drivers a chance to defer incoming I/O as 33needed. 34 35Next, recovery is performed in several stages. Most of the complexity 36is forced by the need to handle multi-function devices, that is, 37devices that have multiple device drivers associated with them. 38In the first stage, each driver is allowed to indicate what type 39of reset it desires, the choices being a simple re-enabling of I/O 40or requesting a hard reset (a full electrical #RST of the PCI card). 41If any driver requests a full reset, that is what will be done. 42 43After a full reset and/or a re-enabling of I/O, all drivers are 44again notified, so that they may then perform any device setup/config 45that may be required. After these have all completed, a final 46"resume normal operations" event is sent out. 47 48The biggest reason for choosing a kernel-based implementation rather 49than a user-space implementation was the need to deal with bus 50disconnects of PCI devices attached to storage media, and, in particular, 51disconnects from devices holding the root file system. If the root 52file system is disconnected, a user-space mechanism would have to go 53through a large number of contortions to complete recovery. Almost all 54of the current Linux file systems are not tolerant of disconnection 55from/reconnection to their underlying block device. By contrast, 56bus errors are easy to manage in the device driver. Indeed, most 57device drivers already handle very similar recovery procedures; 58for example, the SCSI-generic layer already provides significant 59mechanisms for dealing with SCSI bus errors and SCSI bus resets. 60 61 62Detailed Design 63--------------- 64Design and implementation details below, based on a chain of 65public email discussions with Ben Herrenschmidt, circa 5 April 2005. 66 67The error recovery API support is exposed to the driver in the form of 68a structure of function pointers pointed to by a new field in struct 69pci_driver. A driver that fails to provide the structure is "non-aware", 70and the actual recovery steps taken are platform dependent. The 71arch/powerpc implementation will simulate a PCI hotplug remove/add. 72 73This structure has the form: 74struct pci_error_handlers 75{ 76 int (*error_detected)(struct pci_dev *dev, enum pci_channel_state); 77 int (*mmio_enabled)(struct pci_dev *dev); 78 int (*link_reset)(struct pci_dev *dev); 79 int (*slot_reset)(struct pci_dev *dev); 80 void (*resume)(struct pci_dev *dev); 81}; 82 83The possible channel states are: 84enum pci_channel_state { 85 pci_channel_io_normal, /* I/O channel is in normal state */ 86 pci_channel_io_frozen, /* I/O to channel is blocked */ 87 pci_channel_io_perm_failure, /* PCI card is dead */ 88}; 89 90Possible return values are: 91enum pci_ers_result { 92 PCI_ERS_RESULT_NONE, /* no result/none/not supported in device driver */ 93 PCI_ERS_RESULT_CAN_RECOVER, /* Device driver can recover without slot reset */ 94 PCI_ERS_RESULT_NEED_RESET, /* Device driver wants slot to be reset. */ 95 PCI_ERS_RESULT_DISCONNECT, /* Device has completely failed, is unrecoverable */ 96 PCI_ERS_RESULT_RECOVERED, /* Device driver is fully recovered and operational */ 97}; 98 99A driver does not have to implement all of these callbacks; however, 100if it implements any, it must implement error_detected(). If a callback 101is not implemented, the corresponding feature is considered unsupported. 102For example, if mmio_enabled() and resume() aren't there, then it 103is assumed that the driver is not doing any direct recovery and requires 104a reset. If link_reset() is not implemented, the card is assumed as 105not care about link resets. Typically a driver will want to know about 106a slot_reset(). 107 108The actual steps taken by a platform to recover from a PCI error 109event will be platform-dependent, but will follow the general 110sequence described below. 111 112STEP 0: Error Event 113------------------- 114PCI bus error is detect by the PCI hardware. On powerpc, the slot 115is isolated, in that all I/O is blocked: all reads return 0xffffffff, 116all writes are ignored. 117 118 119STEP 1: Notification 120-------------------- 121Platform calls the error_detected() callback on every instance of 122every driver affected by the error. 123 124At this point, the device might not be accessible anymore, depending on 125the platform (the slot will be isolated on powerpc). The driver may 126already have "noticed" the error because of a failing I/O, but this 127is the proper "synchronization point", that is, it gives the driver 128a chance to cleanup, waiting for pending stuff (timers, whatever, etc...) 129to complete; it can take semaphores, schedule, etc... everything but 130touch the device. Within this function and after it returns, the driver 131shouldn't do any new IOs. Called in task context. This is sort of a 132"quiesce" point. See note about interrupts at the end of this doc. 133 134All drivers participating in this system must implement this call. 135The driver must return one of the following result codes: 136 - PCI_ERS_RESULT_CAN_RECOVER: 137 Driver returns this if it thinks it might be able to recover 138 the HW by just banging IOs or if it wants to be given 139 a chance to extract some diagnostic information (see 140 mmio_enable, below). 141 - PCI_ERS_RESULT_NEED_RESET: 142 Driver returns this if it can't recover without a hard 143 slot reset. 144 - PCI_ERS_RESULT_DISCONNECT: 145 Driver returns this if it doesn't want to recover at all. 146 147The next step taken will depend on the result codes returned by the 148drivers. 149 150If all drivers on the segment/slot return PCI_ERS_RESULT_CAN_RECOVER, 151then the platform should re-enable IOs on the slot (or do nothing in 152particular, if the platform doesn't isolate slots), and recovery 153proceeds to STEP 2 (MMIO Enable). 154 155If any driver requested a slot reset (by returning PCI_ERS_RESULT_NEED_RESET), 156then recovery proceeds to STEP 4 (Slot Reset). 157 158If the platform is unable to recover the slot, the next step 159is STEP 6 (Permanent Failure). 160 161>>> The current powerpc implementation assumes that a device driver will 162>>> *not* schedule or semaphore in this routine; the current powerpc 163>>> implementation uses one kernel thread to notify all devices; 164>>> thus, if one device sleeps/schedules, all devices are affected. 165>>> Doing better requires complex multi-threaded logic in the error 166>>> recovery implementation (e.g. waiting for all notification threads 167>>> to "join" before proceeding with recovery.) This seems excessively 168>>> complex and not worth implementing. 169 170>>> The current powerpc implementation doesn't much care if the device 171>>> attempts I/O at this point, or not. I/O's will fail, returning 172>>> a value of 0xff on read, and writes will be dropped. If the device 173>>> driver attempts more than 10K I/O's to a frozen adapter, it will 174>>> assume that the device driver has gone into an infinite loop, and 175>>> it will panic the kernel. There doesn't seem to be any other 176>>> way of stopping a device driver that insists on spinning on I/O. 177 178STEP 2: MMIO Enabled 179------------------- 180The platform re-enables MMIO to the device (but typically not the 181DMA), and then calls the mmio_enabled() callback on all affected 182device drivers. 183 184This is the "early recovery" call. IOs are allowed again, but DMA is 185not (hrm... to be discussed, I prefer not), with some restrictions. This 186is NOT a callback for the driver to start operations again, only to 187peek/poke at the device, extract diagnostic information, if any, and 188eventually do things like trigger a device local reset or some such, 189but not restart operations. This is callback is made if all drivers on 190a segment agree that they can try to recover and if no automatic link reset 191was performed by the HW. If the platform can't just re-enable IOs without 192a slot reset or a link reset, it wont call this callback, and instead 193will have gone directly to STEP 3 (Link Reset) or STEP 4 (Slot Reset) 194 195>>> The following is proposed; no platform implements this yet: 196>>> Proposal: All I/O's should be done _synchronously_ from within 197>>> this callback, errors triggered by them will be returned via 198>>> the normal pci_check_whatever() API, no new error_detected() 199>>> callback will be issued due to an error happening here. However, 200>>> such an error might cause IOs to be re-blocked for the whole 201>>> segment, and thus invalidate the recovery that other devices 202>>> on the same segment might have done, forcing the whole segment 203>>> into one of the next states, that is, link reset or slot reset. 204 205The driver should return one of the following result codes: 206 - PCI_ERS_RESULT_RECOVERED 207 Driver returns this if it thinks the device is fully 208 functional and thinks it is ready to start 209 normal driver operations again. There is no 210 guarantee that the driver will actually be 211 allowed to proceed, as another driver on the 212 same segment might have failed and thus triggered a 213 slot reset on platforms that support it. 214 215 - PCI_ERS_RESULT_NEED_RESET 216 Driver returns this if it thinks the device is not 217 recoverable in it's current state and it needs a slot 218 reset to proceed. 219 220 - PCI_ERS_RESULT_DISCONNECT 221 Same as above. Total failure, no recovery even after 222 reset driver dead. (To be defined more precisely) 223 224The next step taken depends on the results returned by the drivers. 225If all drivers returned PCI_ERS_RESULT_RECOVERED, then the platform 226proceeds to either STEP3 (Link Reset) or to STEP 5 (Resume Operations). 227 228If any driver returned PCI_ERS_RESULT_NEED_RESET, then the platform 229proceeds to STEP 4 (Slot Reset) 230 231>>> The current powerpc implementation does not implement this callback. 232 233 234STEP 3: Link Reset 235------------------ 236The platform resets the link, and then calls the link_reset() callback 237on all affected device drivers. This is a PCI-Express specific state 238and is done whenever a non-fatal error has been detected that can be 239"solved" by resetting the link. This call informs the driver of the 240reset and the driver should check to see if the device appears to be 241in working condition. 242 243The driver is not supposed to restart normal driver I/O operations 244at this point. It should limit itself to "probing" the device to 245check it's recoverability status. If all is right, then the platform 246will call resume() once all drivers have ack'd link_reset(). 247 248 Result codes: 249 (identical to STEP 3 (MMIO Enabled) 250 251The platform then proceeds to either STEP 4 (Slot Reset) or STEP 5 252(Resume Operations). 253 254>>> The current powerpc implementation does not implement this callback. 255 256 257STEP 4: Slot Reset 258------------------ 259The platform performs a soft or hard reset of the device, and then 260calls the slot_reset() callback. 261 262A soft reset consists of asserting the adapter #RST line and then 263restoring the PCI BAR's and PCI configuration header to a state 264that is equivalent to what it would be after a fresh system 265power-on followed by power-on BIOS/system firmware initialization. 266If the platform supports PCI hotplug, then the reset might be 267performed by toggling the slot electrical power off/on. 268 269It is important for the platform to restore the PCI config space 270to the "fresh poweron" state, rather than the "last state". After 271a slot reset, the device driver will almost always use its standard 272device initialization routines, and an unusual config space setup 273may result in hung devices, kernel panics, or silent data corruption. 274 275This call gives drivers the chance to re-initialize the hardware 276(re-download firmware, etc.). At this point, the driver may assume 277that he card is in a fresh state and is fully functional. In 278particular, interrupt generation should work normally. 279 280Drivers should not yet restart normal I/O processing operations 281at this point. If all device drivers report success on this 282callback, the platform will call resume() to complete the sequence, 283and let the driver restart normal I/O processing. 284 285A driver can still return a critical failure for this function if 286it can't get the device operational after reset. If the platform 287previously tried a soft reset, it might now try a hard reset (power 288cycle) and then call slot_reset() again. It the device still can't 289be recovered, there is nothing more that can be done; the platform 290will typically report a "permanent failure" in such a case. The 291device will be considered "dead" in this case. 292 293Drivers for multi-function cards will need to coordinate among 294themselves as to which driver instance will perform any "one-shot" 295or global device initialization. For example, the Symbios sym53cxx2 296driver performs device init only from PCI function 0: 297 298+ if (PCI_FUNC(pdev->devfn) == 0) 299+ sym_reset_scsi_bus(np, 0); 300 301 Result codes: 302 - PCI_ERS_RESULT_DISCONNECT 303 Same as above. 304 305Platform proceeds either to STEP 5 (Resume Operations) or STEP 6 (Permanent 306Failure). 307 308>>> The current powerpc implementation does not currently try a 309>>> power-cycle reset if the driver returned PCI_ERS_RESULT_DISCONNECT. 310>>> However, it probably should. 311 312 313STEP 5: Resume Operations 314------------------------- 315The platform will call the resume() callback on all affected device 316drivers if all drivers on the segment have returned 317PCI_ERS_RESULT_RECOVERED from one of the 3 previous callbacks. 318The goal of this callback is to tell the driver to restart activity, 319that everything is back and running. This callback does not return 320a result code. 321 322At this point, if a new error happens, the platform will restart 323a new error recovery sequence. 324 325STEP 6: Permanent Failure 326------------------------- 327A "permanent failure" has occurred, and the platform cannot recover 328the device. The platform will call error_detected() with a 329pci_channel_state value of pci_channel_io_perm_failure. 330 331The device driver should, at this point, assume the worst. It should 332cancel all pending I/O, refuse all new I/O, returning -EIO to 333higher layers. The device driver should then clean up all of its 334memory and remove itself from kernel operations, much as it would 335during system shutdown. 336 337The platform will typically notify the system operator of the 338permanent failure in some way. If the device is hotplug-capable, 339the operator will probably want to remove and replace the device. 340Note, however, not all failures are truly "permanent". Some are 341caused by over-heating, some by a poorly seated card. Many 342PCI error events are caused by software bugs, e.g. DMA's to 343wild addresses or bogus split transactions due to programming 344errors. See the discussion in powerpc/eeh-pci-error-recovery.txt 345for additional detail on real-life experience of the causes of 346software errors. 347 348 349Conclusion; General Remarks 350--------------------------- 351The way those callbacks are called is platform policy. A platform with 352no slot reset capability may want to just "ignore" drivers that can't 353recover (disconnect them) and try to let other cards on the same segment 354recover. Keep in mind that in most real life cases, though, there will 355be only one driver per segment. 356 357Now, a note about interrupts. If you get an interrupt and your 358device is dead or has been isolated, there is a problem :) 359The current policy is to turn this into a platform policy. 360That is, the recovery API only requires that: 361 362 - There is no guarantee that interrupt delivery can proceed from any 363device on the segment starting from the error detection and until the 364resume callback is sent, at which point interrupts are expected to be 365fully operational. 366 367 - There is no guarantee that interrupt delivery is stopped, that is, 368a driver that gets an interrupt after detecting an error, or that detects 369an error within the interrupt handler such that it prevents proper 370ack'ing of the interrupt (and thus removal of the source) should just 371return IRQ_NOTHANDLED. It's up to the platform to deal with that 372condition, typically by masking the IRQ source during the duration of 373the error handling. It is expected that the platform "knows" which 374interrupts are routed to error-management capable slots and can deal 375with temporarily disabling that IRQ number during error processing (this 376isn't terribly complex). That means some IRQ latency for other devices 377sharing the interrupt, but there is simply no other way. High end 378platforms aren't supposed to share interrupts between many devices 379anyway :) 380 381>>> Implementation details for the powerpc platform are discussed in 382>>> the file Documentation/powerpc/eeh-pci-error-recovery.txt 383 384>>> As of this writing, there are six device drivers with patches 385>>> implementing error recovery. Not all of these patches are in 386>>> mainline yet. These may be used as "examples": 387>>> 388>>> drivers/scsi/ipr.c 389>>> drivers/scsi/sym53cxx_2 390>>> drivers/next/e100.c 391>>> drivers/net/e1000 392>>> drivers/net/ixgb 393>>> drivers/net/s2io.c 394 395The End 396------- 397