Re: [PATCH v5 1/8] EDAC: Update documentation for the CXL memory patrol scrub control feature

Randy Dunlap
2025-05-15T17:18:25Z

On 5/15/25 4:59 AM, shiju.jose@huawei.com wrote:
> From: Shiju Jose <shiju.jose@huawei.com>
>
> Update the Documentation/edac/scrub.rst to include use cases and
> policies for CXL memory device-based, CXL region-based patrol scrub
> control and CXL Error Check Scrub (ECS).
>
> Reviewed-by: Dave Jiang <dave.jiang@intel.com>
> Reviewed-by: Jonathan Cameron <Jonathan.Cameron@huawei.com>
> Signed-off-by: Shiju Jose <shiju.jose@huawei.com>
> ---
> Documentation/edac/scrub.rst | 76 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 1 file changed, 76 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/edac/scrub.rst b/Documentation/edac/scrub.rst
> index daab929cdba1..5c99f42eae0a 100644
> --- a/Documentation/edac/scrub.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/edac/scrub.rst
> @@ -264,3 +264,79 @@ Sysfs files are documented in
> `Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-edac-scrub`
>
> `Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-edac-ecs`
> +
> +Examples
> +--------
> +
> +The usage takes the form shown in these examples:
> +
> +1. CXL memory Patrol Scrub
> +
> +The following are the use cases identified why we might increase the scrub rate.
> +
> +- Scrubbing is needed at device granularity because a device is showing
> + unexpectedly high errors.
> +
> +- Scrubbing may apply to memory that isn't online at all yet. Likely this
> + is a system wide default setting on boot.
> +
> +- Scrubbing at a higher rate because the monitor software has determined that
> + more reliability is necessary for a particular data set. This is called
> + Differentiated Reliability.
> +
> +1.1. Device based scrubbing
> +
> +CXL memory is exposed to memory management subsystem and ultimately userspace
> +via CXL devices. Device-based scrubbing is used for the first use case
> +described in "Section 1 CXL Memory Patrol Scrub".
> +
> +When combining control via the device interfaces and region interfaces,
> +"see Section 1.2 Region based scrubbing".
> +
> +Sysfs files for scrubbing are documented in
> +`Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-edac-scrub`
> +
> +1.2. Region based scrubbing
> +
> +CXL memory is exposed to memory management subsystem and ultimately userspace
> +via CXL regions. CXL Regions represent mapped memory capacity in system
> +physical address space. These can incorporate one or more parts of multiple CXL
> +memory devices with traffic interleaved across them. The user may want to control
> +the scrub rate via this more abstract region instead of having to figure out the
> +constituent devices and program them separately. The scrub rate for each device
> +covers the whole device. Thus if multiple regions use parts of that device then
> +requests for scrubbing of other regions may result in a higher scrub rate than
> +requested for this specific region.
> +
> +Region-based scrubbing is used for the third use case described in
> +"Section 1 CXL Memory Patrol Scrub".
> +
> +Userspace must follow below set of rules on how to set the scrub rates for any
> +mixture of requirements.
> +
> +1. Taking each region in turn from lowest desired scrub rate to highest and set
> + their scrub rates. Later regions may override the scrub rate on individual
> + devices (and hence potentially whole regions).
> +
> +2. Take each device for which enhanced scrubbing is required (higher rate) and
> + set those scrub rates. This will override the scrub rates of individual devices,
> + setting them to the maximum rate required for any of the regions they help back,
> + unless a specific rate is already defined.
> +
> +Sysfs files for scrubbing are documented in
> +`Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-edac-scrub`
> +
> +2. CXL memory Error Check Scrub (ECS)
> +
> +The Error Check Scrub (ECS) feature enables a memory device to perform error
> +checking and correction (ECC) and count single-bit errors. The associated
> +memory controller sets the ECS mode with a trigger sent to the memory
> +device. CXL ECS control, allows the host, thus the userspace, to change the

no comma: ^

> +attributes for error count mode, threshold number of errors per segment
> +(indicating how many segments have at least that number of errors) for
> +reporting errors, and reset the ECS counter. Thus, the responsibility for
> +initiating Error Check Scrub on a memory device may lie with the memory
> +controller or platform when unexpectedly high error rates are detected.
> +
> +Sysfs files for scrubbing are documented in
> +`Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-edac-ecs`

--
~Randy