Re: [PATCH] rtc: rtc-at91rm9200: use a variable for storing IMR

[Douglas Gilbert <dgilbert@interlog.com>]

On 13-03-28 05:57 AM, Johan Hovold wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 05:09:59PM -0400, Douglas Gilbert wrote:
>> On 13-03-26 03:27 PM, Johan Hovold wrote:
>>> On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 06:37:12PM +0100, Nicolas Ferre wrote:
>>>> On some revisions of AT91 SoCs, the RTC IMR register is not working.
>>>> Instead of elaborating a workaround for that specific SoC or IP version,
>>>> we simply use a software variable to store the Interrupt Mask Register and
>>>> modify it for each enabling/disabling of an interrupt. The overhead of this
>>>> is negligible anyway.
>>>
>>> The patch does not add any memory barriers or register read-backs when
>>> manipulating the interrupt-mask variable. This could possibly lead to
>>> spurious interrupts both when enabling and disabling the various
>>> RTC-interrupts due to write reordering and bus latencies.
>>>
>>> Has this been considered? And is this reason enough for a more targeted
>>> work-around so that the SOCs with functional RTC_IMR are not affected?
>>
>> The SoCs in question use a single embedded ARM926EJ-S and
>> according to the Atmel documentation, that CPU's instruction
>> set contains no barrier (or related) instructions.
>
> The ARM926EJ-S actually does have a Drain Write Buffer instruction but
> it's not used by the ARM barrier-implementation unless
> CONFIG_ARM_DMA_MEM_BUFFERABLE or CONFIG_SMP is set.

The ARM926EJ-S is ARMv5 so CONFIG_ARM_DMA_MEM_BUFFERABLE is not
available. SMP is not an option for arm/mach-at91.

> However, wmb() always implies a compiler barrier which is what is needed
> in this case.

Even if wmb() did anything, would it make this case "safe"?

>> In the arch/arm/mach-at91 sub-tree of the kernel source
>> I can find no use of the wmb() call. Also checked all drivers
>> in the kernel containing "at91" and none called wmb().
>
> I/O-operations are normally not reordered, but this patch is faking a
> hardware register and thus extra care needs to be taken.
>
> To repeat:
>
>> @@ -198,9 +203,12 @@ static int at91_rtc_alarm_irq_enable(struct device *dev, unsigned int enabled)
>>
>>        if (enabled) {
>>                at91_rtc_write(AT91_RTC_SCCR, AT91_RTC_ALARM);
>> +             at91_rtc_imr |= AT91_RTC_ALARM;
>
> Here a barrier is needed to prevent the compiler from reordering the two
> writes (i.e., mask update and interrupt enable).

Isn't either order potentially unsafe? So even if the compiler
did foolishly re-order them, the sequence is still unsafe when
a SYS interrupt splits those two lines (since the SYS interrupt
is shared, it can occur at any time).

>>                at91_rtc_write(AT91_RTC_IER, AT91_RTC_ALARM);
>> -     } else
>> +     } else {
>>                at91_rtc_write(AT91_RTC_IDR, AT91_RTC_ALARM);
>
> Here a barrier is again needed to prevent the compiler from reordering,
> but we also need a register read back (of some RTC-register) before
> updating the mask. Without the register read back, there could be a
> window where the mask does not match the hardware state due to bus
> latencies.
>
> Note that even with a register read back there is a (theoretical)
> possibility that the interrupts have not yet been disabled when the fake
> mask is updated. The only way to know for sure is to poll RTC_IMR but
> that is the very register you're trying to emulate.
>
>> +             at91_rtc_imr &= ~AT91_RTC_ALARM;
>> +     }
>>
>>        return 0;
>> }
>
> In the worst-case scenario ignoring the shared RTC-interrupt could lead
> to the disabling of the system interrupt and thus also PIT, DBGU, ...

And how often does the AT91_RTC_ALARM alarm interrupt fire?

> I think this patch should be reverted and a fix for the broken SoCs be
> implemented which does not penalise the other SoCs. That is, only
> fall-back to faking IMR on the SoCs where it is actually broken.

Even though I sent a patch to fix this problem to Nicolas,
what was presented is not my version. In mine I added DT
support:

#ifdef CONFIG_OF
static const struct of_device_id at91rm9200_rtc_dt_ids[] = {
        { .compatible = "atmel,at91rm9200-rtc", .data = &at91rm9200_config },
        { .compatible = "atmel,at91sam9x5-rtc", .data = &at91sam9x5_config },
        { /* sentinel */ }
};
MODULE_DEVICE_TABLE(of, at91rm9200_rtc_dt_ids);
#else
#define at91rm9200_rtc_dt_ids NULL
#endif /* CONFIG_OF */


The shadow IMR variable was only active in the
      .compatible = "atmel,at91sam9x5-rtc"
case. That protected all existing users from any problems
that might be introduced.

Doug Gilbert