Re: [GIT PULL] Block updates for 6.9-rc1

Mike Snitzer
2024-03-12T15:22:56Z

On Mon, Mar 11 2024 at 9:09P -0400,
Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 08:28:50PM -0400, Mike Snitzer wrote:
> > All for Jens being made to suffer with dm-crypt but I think we need a
> > proper root cause of what is happening for you and Johannes ;)
>
> I'm going to try to stay out of the cranking, but I think the reason is
> that the limits stacking inherits the max_segment_size, nvme has weird
> rules for them due their odd PRPs, and dm-crypt set it's own
> max_segment_size to split out each page. The regression here is
> that we now actually verify that conflict.
>
> So this happens only for dm-crypt on nvme. The fix is probably
> to not inherit low-level limits like max_segment_size, but I need
> to think about it a bit more and come up with an automated test case
> using say nvme-loop.

Yeah, I generally agree.

I looked at the latest code to more fully understand why this failed.

1) dm-crypt.c:crypt_io_hints() sets limits->max_segment_size = PAGE_SIZE;

2) drivers/nvme/host/core.c:nvme_set_ctrl_limits() sets:
lim->virt_boundary_mask = NVME_CTRL_PAGE_SIZE - 1;
lim->max_segment_size = UINT_MAX;

3) blk_stack_limits(t=dm-crypt, b=nvme-pci) will combine limits:
t->virt_boundary_mask = min_not_zero(t->virt_boundary_mask,
b->virt_boundary_mask);
t->max_segment_size = min_not_zero(t->max_segment_size,
b->max_segment_size);

4) blk_validate_limits() will reject the limits that
blk_stack_limits() created:
/*
* Devices that require a virtual boundary do not support scatter/gather
* I/O natively, but instead require a descriptor list entry for each
* page (which might not be identical to the Linux PAGE_SIZE). Because
* of that they are not limited by our notion of "segment size".
*/
if (lim->virt_boundary_mask) {
if (WARN_ON_ONCE(lim->max_segment_size &&
lim->max_segment_size != UINT_MAX))
return -EINVAL;
lim->max_segment_size = UINT_MAX;
} else {
/*
* The maximum segment size has an odd historic 64k default that
* drivers probably should override. Just like the I/O size we
* require drivers to at least handle a full page per segment.
*/
if (!lim->max_segment_size)
lim->max_segment_size = BLK_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE;
if (WARN_ON_ONCE(lim->max_segment_size < PAGE_SIZE))
return -EINVAL;
}

blk_validate_limits() is currently very pedantic. I discussed with Jens
briefly and we're thinking it might make sense for blk_validate_limits()
to be more forgiving by _not_ imposing hard -EINVAL failure. That in
the interim, during this transition to more curated and atomic limits, a
WARN_ON_ONCE() splat should serve as enough notice to developers (be it
lower level nvme or higher-level virtual devices like DM).

BUT for this specific max_segment_size case, the constraints of dm-crypt
are actually more conservative due to crypto requirements. Yet nvme's
more general "don't care, but will care if non-nvme driver does" for
this particular max_segment_size limit is being imposed when validating
the combined limits that dm-crypt will impose at the top-level.

All said, the above "if (lim->virt_boundary_mask)" check in
blk_validate_limits() looks bogus for stacked device limits.

Mike