RE: boot stall regression due to blk-mq: use percpu_ref for mq usage count

Elliott, Robert (Server Storage)
2014-09-23T14:58:50Z

> -----Original Message-----
> From: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org [mailto:linux-kernel-
> owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of Tejun Heo
> Sent: Tuesday, 23 September, 2014 1:12 AM
> To: Christoph Hellwig
> Cc: Jens Axboe; linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org; linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: Re: boot stall regression due to blk-mq: use percpu_ref for mq usage
> count
>
> On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 08:09:06AM +0200, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 02:01:41AM -0400, Tejun Heo wrote:
> > > On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 07:59:24AM +0200, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > > > "[PATCHSET percpu/for-3.18] percpu_ref: implement
> switch_to_atomic/percpu()"
> > > >
> > > > looks way to big for 3.17, and the regression was introduced in the
> 3.17
> > > > merge window. I'm not sure what was broken before, but it defintively
> > > > survived a lot of testing.
> > >
> > > Do we even care about fixing it for 3.17? scsi-mq isn't enabled by
> > > default even for 3.18. The open-coded percpu ref thing was subtly
> > > broken there. It'd be difficult to trigger but I'm fairly sure it'd
> > > crap out in the wild once in a blue moon.
> >
> > It's compiled in by default, and people are extremly eager to test it.
>
> Ugh, I don't know. It's not like we have a very good baseline we can
> go back to and reverting it for -stable and then redoing it seems
> kinda excessive for a yet experimental feature. Jens?

scsi_mod.use_blk_mq is not listed in 3.17rc6 Documentation/kernel-
parameters.txt or Documentation/scsi/scsi-parameters.txt (which
does admit "This document may not be entirely up to date and
comprehensive.").

Perhaps a description with an "experimental" warning could be
slipped into scsi-parameters.txt in 3.17, with plans to remove
that warning in 3.18.

---
Rob Elliott HP Server Storage