Re: [RFC v2 2/3] vfio-ccw: Prevent quiesce function going into an infinite loop

Cornelia Huck
2019-04-15T08:13:39Z

On Fri, 12 Apr 2019 10:38:50 -0400
Farhan Ali <alifm@linux.ibm.com> wrote:

> On 04/12/2019 04:10 AM, Cornelia Huck wrote:
> > On Thu, 11 Apr 2019 16:30:44 -0400
> > Farhan Ali <alifm@linux.ibm.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On 04/11/2019 12:24 PM, Cornelia Huck wrote:
> >>> On Mon, 8 Apr 2019 17:05:32 -0400
> >>> Farhan Ali <alifm@linux.ibm.com> wrote:

> >>> Looking at the possible return codes:
> >>> * -ENODEV -> device is not operational anyway, in theory you should even
> >>> not need to bother with disabling the subchannel
> >>> * -EIO -> we've run out of retries, and the subchannel still is not
> >>> idle; I'm not sure if we could do anything here, as disable is
> >>> unlikely to work, either

(...)

> Thinking a little bit more about EIO, if the return code is EIO then it
> means we have exhausted all our options with cancel_halt_clear and the
> subchannel/device is still status pending, right?

Yes.

>
> I think we should still continue to try and disable the subchannel,
> because if not then the subchannel/device could in some point of time
> come back and bite us. So we really should protect the system from this
> behavior.

I think trying to disable the subchannel does not really hurt, but I
fear it won't succeed in that case...

>
> I think for EIO we should log an error message, but still try to
> continue with disabling the subchannel. What do you or others think?

Logging an error may be useful (it's really fouled up at that time), but...

>
>
>
>
> >>
> >>>> + flush_workqueue(vfio_ccw_work_q);
> >>>> + spin_lock_irq(sch->lock);
> >>>> ret = cio_disable_subchannel(sch);

...there's a good chance that we'd get -EBUSY here, which would keep us
in the loop. We probably need to break out after we got -EIO from
cancel_halt_clear, regardless of which return code we get from the
disable.

(It will be "interesting" to see what happens with such a stuck
subchannel in the calling code; but I don't really see many options.
Panic seems way too strong; maybe mark the subchannel as "broken; no
idea how to fix"? But that would be a follow-on patch; I think if we
avoid the endless loop here, this patch is a real improvement and
should just go in.)

> >>>> } while (ret == -EBUSY);
> >>>> out_unlock:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >
> >
>