Re: [RFD] uevent handling for subchannels

[Cornelia Huck <cohuck@redhat.com>]

<casts "reanimate" on dead thread>

On Wed, 1 Jul 2020 11:23:13 +0200
Cornelia Huck <cohuck@redhat.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 29 Jun 2020 13:56:31 +0200
> Cornelia Huck <cohuck@redhat.com> wrote:
> 
> > Ok, so I've resumed the thinking process, and I think getting rid of
> > the "no I/O subchannel without functional device" approach is a good
> > idea, and allows us to make handling driver matches more similar to
> > everyone else.  
> 
> As an aside, there's another odd construct: the I/O subchannel driver
> *always* binds to the subchannel device, even if there is a problem,
> and schedules an unregistration of the subchannel device on error. This
> was introduced because events from machine check handling are not
> processed if there isn't a driver (at least I thought back then that it
> was a good idea.) I think a more correct way to handle this would be to
> do the following:
> 
> * If something doesn't work, clean up and return an error in the probe
>   function. The subchannel device stays around, it's just not bound.
> * Have the css bus do some basic processing for subchannels not bound
>   to any driver (e.g., check dnv/w). This would also make it possible
>   to unregister dead message subchannels if a machine check is received
>   for them (don't know if that's an actual problem in pratice.)
> 
> > 
> > What changes would be needed?
> > * The whole logic to suppress uevents for subchannels and generate one
> >   later will go. (Touches the various subchannel driver, including
> >   vfio-ccw.)
> > * ccw_device_todo() can just unregister the ccw device, and there's no
> >   longer a need for ccw_device_call_sch_unregister(). (IIUC, this also
> >   covers setting disconnected devices offline.)  
> 
> I'm actually not sure if unregistration-by-driver is the right thing
> for most cases (except for something like disconnected device removal),
> that should be done by the bus. Maybe something for later (don't fear,
> I don't plan to work on the common I/O layer again :)
> 
> > * As the I/O subchannel driver now needs to deal with cases where no
> >   ccw device is available, the code for that needs to be checked.
> >   (That's probably the most time-consuming task.)  
> 
> Had a quick look, doesn't actually look too bad (most places already
> check for !cdev.)
> 
> > 
> > Userspace should be fine with I/O subchannels without ccw device,
> > that's nothing new.
> > 
> > Does that sound reasonable?  

Is anybody looking at this? The delayed uevent handling is a bit of a
mess for management of vfio-ccw devices...