Re: [PATCH] mmc: core: Fix off-by-one error in mmc_do_calc_max_discard()

[Adrian Hunter <adrian.hunter@intel.com>]

On 01/06/15 15:30, David Jander wrote:
> On Mon, 01 Jun 2015 14:50:47 +0300
> Adrian Hunter <adrian.hunter@intel.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 01/06/15 14:32, David Jander wrote:
>>> On Mon, 01 Jun 2015 13:36:45 +0300
>>> Adrian Hunter <adrian.hunter@intel.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 01/06/15 12:20, David Jander wrote:
>>>>> qty is the maximum number of discard that _do_ fit in the timeout, not
>>>>> the first amount that does _not_ fit anymore.
>>>>> This seemingly harmless error has a very severe performance impact when
>>>>> the timeout value is enough for only 1 erase group.
>>>>>
>>>>> Signed-off-by: David Jander <david@protonic.nl>
>>>>> ---
>>>>>  drivers/mmc/core/core.c | 7 ++-----
>>>>>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
>>>>>
>>>>> diff --git a/drivers/mmc/core/core.c b/drivers/mmc/core/core.c
>>>>> index 92e7671..1f9573b 100644
>>>>> --- a/drivers/mmc/core/core.c
>>>>> +++ b/drivers/mmc/core/core.c
>>>>> @@ -2234,16 +2234,13 @@ static unsigned int
>>>>> mmc_do_calc_max_discard(struct mmc_card *card, if (!qty)
>>>>>  		return 0;
>>>>>  
>>>>> -	if (qty == 1)
>>>>> -		return 1;
>>>>> -
>>>>>  	/* Convert qty to sectors */
>>>>>  	if (card->erase_shift)
>>>>> -		max_discard = --qty << card->erase_shift;
>>>>> +		max_discard = qty << card->erase_shift;
>>>>>  	else if (mmc_card_sd(card))
>>>>>  		max_discard = qty;
>>>>>  	else
>>>>> -		max_discard = --qty * card->erase_size;
>>>>> +		max_discard = qty * card->erase_size;
>>>>>  
>>>>>  	return max_discard;
>>>>>  }
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This keeps coming up but there is more to it than that.  See here:
>>>>
>>>> 	http://marc.info/?l=linux-mmc&m=142504164427546
>>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks for the link. I think it is time to put a comment on that piece of
>>> code to clarify this.
>>> Also, this code badly needs optimizing. I happen to have one of those
>>> unfortunate cases, where the maximum timeout of the MMC controller
>>> (Freescale i.MX6 uSDHCI) is 5.4 seconds, and the eMMC device (Micron 16GB
>>> eMMC) TRIM_MULT is 15 (4.5 seconds). As a result mmc_do_calc_max_discard()
>>> returns 1 and mkfs.ext4 takes several hours!! I think it is pretty clear
>>> that this is unacceptable and needs to be fixed.
>>> AFAICS, the "correct fix" for this would implicate that discard knows about
>>> the erase-group boundaries... something that could reach into the
>>> block-layer even... right?
>>
>> Not necessarily. You could regard the "can only do 1 erase block at a time"
>> case as special, flag it, and in that case have mmc_erase() split along
>> erase block boundaries and call mmc_do_erase() multiple times. Then you
>> could set max_discard to something arbitrarily bigger.
> 
> Right. I was just looking at mmc_erase() and thought about splitting the erase
> at the next boundary if it was not aligned. That way my patch could be used in
> every case, since we would ensure that mmc_do_erase() will always start
> erase-group aligned. Would you agree to such a solution?

Why would people who don't have your problem want their erase performance
potentially degraded by unnecessary splitting.

> Just to be clear, I propose:
> 
>  1. mmc_do_calc_max_discard() assumes erase-group-aligned discards, and thus
>  returns "qty * card->erase_size" instead of "--qty * card->erase_size".
> 
>  2. mmc_erase() always splits off the first chunk that is not
>  erase-group-aligned and may thus call mmc_do_erase() twice in succession if
>  necessary.
> 
> No special treatment needed.
> 
>>> Has anybody even started to look into this?
>>
>> Ulf was looking at supporting R1 response instead of R1b response from the
>> erase command and using a software timeout instead of the host controller's
>> hardware timeout.
> 
> That would also be an option, specially if the TRIM_MULT becomes larger than
> what the controller can handle!
> @Ulf: How far are you with this?
> 
> Best regards,
>