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                       PCI Error Recovery

                       ------------------

                        February 2, 2006

                 Current document maintainer:

             Linas Vepstas 

Many PCI bus controllers are able to detect a variety of hardware

PCI errors on the bus, such as parity errors on the data and address

busses, as well as SERR and PERR errors.  Some of the more advanced

chipsets are able to deal with these errors; these include PCI-E chipsets,

and the PCI-host bridges found on IBM Power4 and Power5-based pSeries

boxes. A typical action taken is to disconnect the affected device,

halting all I/O to it.  The goal of a disconnection is to avoid system

corruption; for example, to halt system memory corruption due to DMA's

to "wild" addresses. Typically, a reconnection mechanism is also

offered, so that the affected PCI device(s) are reset and put back

into working condition. The reset phase requires coordination

between the affected device drivers and the PCI controller chip.

This document describes a generic API for notifying device drivers

of a bus disconnection, and then performing error recovery.

This API is currently implemented in the 2.6.16 and later kernels.

Reporting and recovery is performed in several steps. First, when

a PCI hardware error has resulted in a bus disconnect, that event

is reported as soon as possible to all affected device drivers,

including multiple instances of a device driver on multi-function

cards. This allows device drivers to avoid deadlocking in spinloops,

waiting for some i/o-space register to change, when it never will.

It also gives the drivers a chance to defer incoming I/O as

needed.

Next, recovery is performed in several stages. Most of the complexity

is forced by the need to handle multi-function devices, that is,

devices that have multiple device drivers associated with them.

In the first stage, each driver is allowed to indicate what type

of reset it desires, the choices being a simple re-enabling of I/O

or requesting a hard reset (a full electrical #RST of the PCI card).

If any driver requests a full reset, that is what will be done.

After a full reset and/or a re-enabling of I/O, all drivers are

again notified, so that they may then perform any device setup/config

that may be required.  After these have all completed, a final

"resume normal operations" event is sent out.

The biggest reason for choosing a kernel-based implementation rather

than a user-space implementation was the need to deal with bus

disconnects of PCI devices attached to storage media, and, in particular,

disconnects from devices holding the root file system.  If the root

file system is disconnected, a user-space mechanism would have to go

through a large number of contortions to complete recovery. Almost all

of the current Linux file systems are not tolerant of disconnection

from/reconnection to their underlying block device. By contrast,

bus errors are easy to manage in the device driver. Indeed, most

device drivers already handle very similar recovery procedures;

for example, the SCSI-generic layer already provides significant

mechanisms for dealing with SCSI bus errors and SCSI bus resets.

Detailed Design

---------------

Design and implementation details below, based on a chain of

public email discussions with Ben Herrenschmidt, circa 5 April 2005.

The error recovery API support is exposed to the driver in the form of

a structure of function pointers pointed to by a new field in struct

pci_driver. A driver that fails to provide the structure is "non-aware",

and the actual recovery steps taken are platform dependent.  The

arch/powerpc implementation will simulate a PCI hotplug remove/add.

This structure has the form:

struct pci_error_handlers

{

        int (*error_detected)(struct pci_dev *dev, enum pci_channel_state);

        int (*mmio_enabled)(struct pci_dev *dev);

        int (*link_reset)(struct pci_dev *dev);

        int (*slot_reset)(struct pci_dev *dev);

        void (*resume)(struct pci_dev *dev);

};

The possible channel states are:

enum pci_channel_state {

        pci_channel_io_normal,  /* I/O channel is in normal state */

        pci_channel_io_frozen,  /* I/O to channel is blocked */

        pci_channel_io_perm_failure, /* PCI card is dead */

};

Possible return values are:

enum pci_ers_result {

        PCI_ERS_RESULT_NONE,        /* no result/none/not supported in device driver */

        PCI_ERS_RESULT_CAN_RECOVER, /* Device driver can recover without slot reset */

        PCI_ERS_RESULT_NEED_RESET,  /* Device driver wants slot to be reset. */

        PCI_ERS_RESULT_DISCONNECT,  /* Device has completely failed, is unrecoverable */

        PCI_ERS_RESULT_RECOVERED,   /* Device driver is fully recovered and operational */

};

A driver does not have to implement all of these callbacks; however,

if it implements any, it must implement error_detected(). If a callback

is not implemented, the corresponding feature is considered unsupported.

For example, if mmio_enabled() and resume() aren't there, then it

is assumed that the driver is not doing any direct recovery and requires

a reset. If link_reset() is not implemented, the card is assumed as

not care about link resets. Typically a driver will want to know about

a slot_reset().

The actual steps taken by a platform to recover from a PCI error

event will be platform-dependent, but will follow the general

sequence described below.

STEP 0: Error Event

-------------------

PCI bus error is detect by the PCI hardware.  On powerpc, the slot

is isolated, in that all I/O is blocked: all reads return 0xffffffff,

all writes are ignored.

STEP 1: Notification

--------------------

Platform calls the error_detected() callback on every instance of

every driver affected by the error.

At this point, the device might not be accessible anymore, depending on

the platform (the slot will be isolated on powerpc). The driver may

already have "noticed" the error because of a failing I/O, but this

is the proper "synchronization point", that is, it gives the driver

a chance to cleanup, waiting for pending stuff (timers, whatever, etc...)

to complete; it can take semaphores, schedule, etc... everything but

touch the device. Within this function and after it returns, the driver

shouldn't do any new IOs. Called in task context. This is sort of a

"quiesce" point. See note about interrupts at the end of this doc.

All drivers participating in this system must implement this call.

The driver must return one of the following result codes:

                - PCI_ERS_RESULT_CAN_RECOVER:

                  Driver returns this if it thinks it might be able to recover

                  the HW by just banging IOs or if it wants to be given

                  a chance to extract some diagnostic information (see

                  mmio_enable, below).

                - PCI_ERS_RESULT_NEED_RESET:

                  Driver returns this if it can't recover without a hard

                  slot reset.

                - PCI_ERS_RESULT_DISCONNECT:

                  Driver returns this if it doesn't want to recover at all.

The next step taken will depend on the result codes returned by the

drivers.

If all drivers on the segment/slot return PCI_ERS_RESULT_CAN_RECOVER,

then the platform should re-enable IOs on the slot (or do nothing in

particular, if the platform doesn't isolate slots), and recovery

proceeds to STEP 2 (MMIO Enable).

If any driver requested a slot reset (by returning PCI_ERS_RESULT_NEED_RESET),

then recovery proceeds to STEP 4 (Slot Reset).

If the platform is unable to recover the slot, the next step

is STEP 6 (Permanent Failure).

>>> The current powerpc implementation assumes that a device driver will

>>> *not* schedule or semaphore in this routine; the current powerpc

>>> implementation uses one kernel thread to notify all devices;

>>> thus, if one device sleeps/schedules, all devices are affected.

>>> Doing better requires complex multi-threaded logic in the error

>>> recovery implementation (e.g. waiting for all notification threads

>>> to "join" before proceeding with recovery.)  This seems excessively

>>> complex and not worth implementing.

>>> The current powerpc implementation doesn't much care if the device

>>> attempts I/O at this point, or not.  I/O's will fail, returning

>>> a value of 0xff on read, and writes will be dropped. If the device

>>> driver attempts more than 10K I/O's to a frozen adapter, it will

>>> assume that the device driver has gone into an infinite loop, and

>>> it will panic the kernel. There doesn't seem to be any other

>>> way of stopping a device driver that insists on spinning on I/O.

STEP 2: MMIO Enabled

-------------------

The platform re-enables MMIO to the device (but typically not the

DMA), and then calls the mmio_enabled() callback on all affected

device drivers.

This is the "early recovery" call. IOs are allowed again, but DMA is

not (hrm... to be discussed, I prefer not), with some restrictions. This

is NOT a callback for the driver to start operations again, only to

peek/poke at the device, extract diagnostic information, if any, and

eventually do things like trigger a device local reset or some such,

but not restart operations. This is callback is made if all drivers on

a segment agree that they can try to recover and if no automatic link reset

was performed by the HW. If the platform can't just re-enable IOs without

a slot reset or a link reset, it wont call this callback, and instead

will have gone directly to STEP 3 (Link Reset) or STEP 4 (Slot Reset)

>>> The following is proposed; no platform implements this yet:

>>> Proposal: All I/O's should be done _synchronously_ from within

>>> this callback, errors triggered by them will be returned via

>>> the normal pci_check_whatever() API, no new error_detected()

>>> callback will be issued due to an error happening here. However,

>>> such an error might cause IOs to be re-blocked for the whole

>>> segment, and thus invalidate the recovery that other devices

>>> on the same segment might have done, forcing the whole segment

>>> into one of the next states, that is, link reset or slot reset.

The driver should return one of the following result codes:

                - PCI_ERS_RESULT_RECOVERED

                  Driver returns this if it thinks the device is fully

                  functional and thinks it is ready to start

                  normal driver operations again. There is no

                  guarantee that the driver will actually be

                  allowed to proceed, as another driver on the

                  same segment might have failed and thus triggered a

                  slot reset on platforms that support it.

                - PCI_ERS_RESULT_NEED_RESET

                  Driver returns this if it thinks the device is not

                  recoverable in it's current state and it needs a slot

                  reset to proceed.

                - PCI_ERS_RESULT_DISCONNECT

                  Same as above. Total failure, no recovery even after

                  reset driver dead. (To be defined more precisely)

The next step taken depends on the results returned by the drivers.

If all drivers returned PCI_ERS_RESULT_RECOVERED, then the platform

proceeds to either STEP3 (Link Reset) or to STEP 5 (Resume Operations).

If any driver returned PCI_ERS_RESULT_NEED_RESET, then the platform

proceeds to STEP 4 (Slot Reset)

>>> The current powerpc implementation does not implement this callback.

STEP 3: Link Reset

------------------

The platform resets the link, and then calls the link_reset() callback

on all affected device drivers.  This is a PCI-Express specific state

and is done whenever a non-fatal error has been detected that can be

"solved" by resetting the link. This call informs the driver of the

reset and the driver should check to see if the device appears to be

in working condition.

The driver is not supposed to restart normal driver I/O operations

at this point.  It should limit itself to "probing" the device to

check it's recoverability status. If all is right, then the platform

will call resume() once all drivers have ack'd link_reset().

        Result codes:

                (identical to STEP 3 (MMIO Enabled)

The platform then proceeds to either STEP 4 (Slot Reset) or STEP 5

(Resume Operations).

>>> The current powerpc implementation does not implement this callback.

STEP 4: Slot Reset

------------------

The platform performs a soft or hard reset of the device, and then

calls the slot_reset() callback.

A soft reset consists of asserting the adapter #RST line and then

restoring the PCI BAR's and PCI configuration header to a state

that is equivalent to what it would be after a fresh system

power-on followed by power-on BIOS/system firmware initialization.

If the platform supports PCI hotplug, then the reset might be

performed by toggling the slot electrical power off/on.

It is important for the platform to restore the PCI config space

to the "fresh poweron" state, rather than the "last state". After

a slot reset, the device driver will almost always use its standard

device initialization routines, and an unusual config space setup

may result in hung devices, kernel panics, or silent data corruption.

This call gives drivers the chance to re-initialize the hardware

(re-download firmware, etc.).  At this point, the driver may assume

that he card is in a fresh state and is fully functional. In

particular, interrupt generation should work normally.

Drivers should not yet restart normal I/O processing operations

at this point.  If all device drivers report success on this

callback, the platform will call resume() to complete the sequence,

and let the driver restart normal I/O processing.

A driver can still return a critical failure for this function if

it can't get the device operational after reset.  If the platform

previously tried a soft reset, it might now try a hard reset (power

cycle) and then call slot_reset() again.  It the device still can't

be recovered, there is nothing more that can be done;  the platform

will typically report a "permanent failure" in such a case.  The

device will be considered "dead" in this case.

Drivers for multi-function cards will need to coordinate among

themselves as to which driver instance will perform any "one-shot"

or global device initialization. For example, the Symbios sym53cxx2

driver performs device init only from PCI function 0:

+       if (PCI_FUNC(pdev->devfn) == 0)

+               sym_reset_scsi_bus(np, 0);

        Result codes:

                - PCI_ERS_RESULT_DISCONNECT

                Same as above.

Platform proceeds either to STEP 5 (Resume Operations) or STEP 6 (Permanent

Failure).

>>> The current powerpc implementation does not currently try a

>>> power-cycle reset if the driver returned PCI_ERS_RESULT_DISCONNECT.

>>> However, it probably should.

STEP 5: Resume Operations

-------------------------

The platform will call the resume() callback on all affected device

drivers if all drivers on the segment have returned

PCI_ERS_RESULT_RECOVERED from one of the 3 previous callbacks.

The goal of this callback is to tell the driver to restart activity,

that everything is back and running. This callback does not return

a result code.

At this point, if a new error happens, the platform will restart

a new error recovery sequence.

STEP 6: Permanent Failure

-------------------------

A "permanent failure" has occurred, and the platform cannot recover

the device.  The platform will call error_detected() with a

pci_channel_state value of pci_channel_io_perm_failure.

The device driver should, at this point, assume the worst. It should

cancel all pending I/O, refuse all new I/O, returning -EIO to

higher layers. The device driver should then clean up all of its

memory and remove itself from kernel operations, much as it would

during system shutdown.

The platform will typically notify the system operator of the

permanent failure in some way.  If the device is hotplug-capable,

the operator will probably want to remove and replace the device.

Note, however, not all failures are truly "permanent". Some are

caused by over-heating, some by a poorly seated card. Many

PCI error events are caused by software bugs, e.g. DMA's to

wild addresses or bogus split transactions due to programming

errors. See the discussion in powerpc/eeh-pci-error-recovery.txt

for additional detail on real-life experience of the causes of

software errors.

Conclusion; General Remarks

---------------------------

The way those callbacks are called is platform policy. A platform with

no slot reset capability may want to just "ignore" drivers that can't

recover (disconnect them) and try to let other cards on the same segment

recover. Keep in mind that in most real life cases, though, there will

be only one driver per segment.

Now, a note about interrupts. If you get an interrupt and your

device is dead or has been isolated, there is a problem :)

The current policy is to turn this into a platform policy.

That is, the recovery API only requires that:

 - There is no guarantee that interrupt delivery can proceed from any

device on the segment starting from the error detection and until the

resume callback is sent, at which point interrupts are expected to be

fully operational.

 - There is no guarantee that interrupt delivery is stopped, that is,

a driver that gets an interrupt after detecting an error, or that detects

an error within the interrupt handler such that it prevents proper

ack'ing of the interrupt (and thus removal of the source) should just

return IRQ_NOTHANDLED. It's up to the platform to deal with that

condition, typically by masking the IRQ source during the duration of

the error handling. It is expected that the platform "knows" which

interrupts are routed to error-management capable slots and can deal

with temporarily disabling that IRQ number during error processing (this

isn't terribly complex). That means some IRQ latency for other devices

sharing the interrupt, but there is simply no other way. High end

platforms aren't supposed to share interrupts between many devices

anyway :)

>>> Implementation details for the powerpc platform are discussed in

>>> the file Documentation/powerpc/eeh-pci-error-recovery.txt

>>> As of this writing, there are six device drivers with patches

>>> implementing error recovery. Not all of these patches are in

>>> mainline yet. These may be used as "examples":

>>>

>>> drivers/scsi/ipr.c

>>> drivers/scsi/sym53cxx_2

>>> drivers/next/e100.c

>>> drivers/net/e1000

>>> drivers/net/ixgb

>>> drivers/net/s2io.c

The End

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