PCIe hotplug

[Alexander Kabaev]

On Sun, 22 Jul 2012 20:22:33 -0600
Scott Long <scottl at samsco.org> wrote:

> 
> On Jul 20, 2012, at 8:04 PM, Julian Elischer wrote:
> 
> > Is anyone looking at PCIe hotplug support?
> > 
> > I'm especially interested if anyone has a strategy for device
> > re-insertion and reassociating the reinserted device with its old
> > device_t so that it gets the same unit number.. (assumes access to
> > a serial number or similar) Even if it is put back into a different
> > slot.
> > 
> 
> Would the PCI system be responsible for figuring out this serial
> number?  I don't think that it can, but it's a question to answer, I
> guess.  If it can't then it's up to the driver to generate a unique
> cookie that would be stored by the PCI subsystem.  This cookie would
> have to be based off of data that can be retrieved from the PCI
> config space and/or VPD space, since anything more would require
> resource allocation, which is only allowed in the DEV_ATTACH phase,
> and once you've hit that phase you've already pretty much sealed the
> deal on unit number assignment.
> 
> So what would probably happen is that the PCI layer provides a ring
> buffer of cookie storage and a set of accessors for the drivers.  The
> cookies would map to a key-value pair with the device unit name and
> number.  During probe, a driver can look at PCI config space and
> generate a cookie.  That cookie can then be communicated up to the
> PCI layer for storage.  Maybe the driver calls a match routine that
> returns a unit number on match and a store on failure, then the
> driver calls a set_unit_number accessor.  Only the driver that wins
> the bid would win the unit number reassignment or cookie storage.  Or
> maybe the driver passes the cookie up as part of its return code, and
> the match and unit assignment happens automatically.  Drivers that
> don't want to participate in this simply wouldn't, and everything
> would continue to operate the same way.  The two sticky parts are
> rogue/buggy drivers that abuse the api and cause a flood of cookies
> to be generated, and questions on when a unit number is eligible for
> reuse.  For the first one, a ring buffer of cookies would solve the
> immediate problem, but you might still have some risk of drivers
> selectively wrapping the buffer for whatever accidental or evil
> purpose.  For the second problem, maybe a unit number stays
> persistent only if the PCIe hot remove mechanism requests it, and
> then only until the ring-buffer wraps.
> 
> Scott
> 

I do not think the whole problem as depicted by Julian is even worth
solving. Why keeping any data for the device that might _never_ come
back? What if the device hierarchy just starts from the PCI-e and
extends upwards and user still holds on to some vestiges of a previous
device chain (say, by keeping a character control device sharing the
same unit number open, common practice)? Reusing unit number is much
trickier then, and might not be even possible. So, before one jumps
into 'how', can we agree on 'why' first? When device goes away, it is
not just this device's device_t that is disappearing, it is a whole
tree rooted at that device. I see no point in trying to reconstruct
that.

PCI-e hotplug proper is very much orthogonal to the question of unit
numbering and IS worth supporting.
-- 
Alexander Kabaev
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