Re: [PATCH v2 0/3] Add NUMA-node-aware synchronous probing to driver core

dan.j.williams
2026-01-24T01:04:37Z

Jinhui Guo wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> ** Overview **
>
> This patchset introduces NUMA-node-aware synchronous probing.
>
> Drivers can initialize and allocate memory on the device’s local
> node without scattering kmalloc_node() calls throughout the code.
> NUMA-aware probing was added to PCI drivers in 2005 and has
> benefited them ever since.
>
> The asynchronous probe path already supports NUMA-node-aware
> probing via async_schedule_dev() in the driver core. Since NUMA
> affinity is orthogonal to sync/async probing, this patchset adds
> NUMA-node-aware support to the synchronous probe path.
>
> ** Background **
>
> The idea arose from a discussion with Bjorn and Danilo about a
> PCI-probe issue [1]:
>
> when PCI devices on the same NUMA node are probed asynchronously,
> pci_call_probe() calls work_on_cpu(), pins every probe worker to
> the same CPU inside that node, and forces the probes to run serially.
>
> Testing three NVMe devices on the same NUMA node of an AMD EPYC 9A64
> 2.4 GHz processor (all on CPU 0):
>
> nvme 0000:01:00.0: CPU: 0, COMM: kworker/0:1, probe cost: 53372612 ns
> nvme 0000:02:00.0: CPU: 0, COMM: kworker/0:2, probe cost: 49532941 ns
> nvme 0000:03:00.0: CPU: 0, COMM: kworker/0:3, probe cost: 47315175 ns
>
> Since the driver core already provides NUMA-node-aware asynchronous
> probing, we can extend the same capability to the synchronous probe
> path. This solves the issue and lets other drivers benefit from
> NUMA-local initialization as well.

I like that from a global benefit perspective, but not necessarily from
a regression perspective. Is there a minimal fix to PCI to make its
current workqueue unbound, then if that goes well come back and move all
devices into this scheme?