RE: [PATCH 2/2] EDAC: add ARM Cortex A15 L2 internal asynchronous error detection driver

["Wiebe, Wladislav (Nokia - DE/Ulm)" <wladislav.wiebe@nokia.com>]

Hi James,

first of all thanks a lot for the constructive and fast feedback!

> -----Original Message-----
> From: James Morse <james.morse@arm.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2019 6:57 PM
> 
> Hi Boris, Wladislav,
> 
> On 08/01/2019 10:42, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> > + James and leaving in the rest for reference.
> 
> (thanks!)
> 
> > So the first thing to figure out here is how generic is this and if
> > so, to make it a cortex_a15_edac.c driver which contains all the RAS
> > functionality for A15. Definitely not an EDAC driver per functional
> > unit but rather per vendor or even ARM core.
> 
> This is implementation-defined/specific-to-A15 and is documented in the
> TRM [0].
> (On the 'all the RAS functionality for A15' front: there are two more registers:
> L2MERRSR and CPUMERRSR. These are both accessible from the normal-
> world, and don't appear to need enabling.)
> 
> 
> But we have the usual pre-v8.2 problems, and in addition cluster-interrupts,
> as this signal might be per-cluster, or it might be combined.
> 
> Wladislav, I'm afraid we've had a few attempts at pre-8.2 EDAC drivers, the
> below list of problems is what we've learnt along the way. The upshot is that
> before the architected RAS extensions, the expectation is firmware will
> handle all this, as its difficult for the OS to deal with.
> 
> 
> My first question is how useful is a 'something bad happened' edac event?

We experienced sometimes random user-space crashes where we didn't 
expect a bug in the application code. If there would be a notification 
by such edac event, we would at least know that something bad happened before.

> Before the v8.2 extensions with its classification of errors, we don't know
> anything more.
> 
> The usual suspects are, (partly taken from the thread at [1]):
> * A15 exists in big/little configurations. We need to know which CPUs are
> A15.
> * We need to know we aren't running under a hypervisor, (a hypervisor can
> trap
>   accesses to these imp-def register, KVM does).
> * Nothing else should be clearing these bits, e.g. secure-world software, or
>   another CPU.
> * Secure-world needs to enable write-access to L2ECTLR, and we need to
>   know its done it. This needs doing on every CPU, and needs to not 'go
> missing'
>   over cpu-hotplug or cpu-idle.
> 
> These are things that don't naturally live in the DT.
> 
> 
> The new-one is these cluster-interrupts: How do we know which set of CPUs
> each interrupt goes with? What happens if user-space tries to rebalance
> them?

Valid question - so far, I didn't consider this case.
 
> Another SoC with A15 may combine all the cluster-interrupts into a single
> 'something bad happened' interrupt. Done like this, we would need to cross-
> call to the other CPUs when we take an interrupt - which is not something we
> can do.
> 
> Is this a level or edge interrupt? Is it necessary to clear that bit in the register
> to lower the interrupt line?
> The TRM talks about 'pending L2 internal asynchronous error', pending
> makes me suspect this is at least possible. If it is, a level-interrupt to one
> CPU, that can only be cleared by another leads to deadlock.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> James
> 
> > On Tue, Jan 08, 2019 at 08:10:45AM +0000, Wiebe, Wladislav (Nokia -
> DE/Ulm) wrote:
> >> This driver adds support for L2 internal asynchronous error detection
> >> caused by L2 RAM double-bit ECC error or illegal writes to the
> >> Interrupt Controller memory-map region on the Cortex A15.
> 
> >> diff --git a/drivers/edac/cortex_a15_l2_async_edac.c
> >> b/drivers/edac/cortex_a15_l2_async_edac.c
> >> new file mode 100644
> >> index 000000000000..26252568e961
> >> --- /dev/null
> >> +++ b/drivers/edac/cortex_a15_l2_async_edac.c
> >> @@ -0,0 +1,134 @@
> >> +// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
> >> +/*
> >> + * Copyright (C) 2018 Nokia Corporation
> 
> (boiler plate not needed with the SPDX header)
> 
> >> + */
> >> +
> >> +#include <linux/module.h>
> >> +#include <linux/interrupt.h>
> >> +#include <linux/platform_device.h>
> >> +#include <linux/of.h>
> >> +
> >> +#include "edac_module.h"
> >> +
> >> +#define DRIVER_NAME "cortex_a15_l2_async_edac"
> >> +
> >> +#define L2ECTLR_L2_ASYNC_ERR BIT(30)
> >> +
> >> +static irqreturn_t cortex_a15_l2_async_edac_err_handler(int irq,
> >> +void *dev_id) {
> >> +	struct edac_device_ctl_info *dci = dev_id;
> >> +	u32 status = 0;
> >> +
> >> +	/*
> >> +	 * Read and clear L2ECTLR L2 ASYNC error bit caused by INTERRIRQ.
> >> +	 * Reason could be a L2 RAM double-bit ECC error or illegal writes
> >> +	 * to the Interrupt Controller memory-map region.
> >> +	 */
> >> +	asm("mrc p15, 1, %0, c9, c0, 3" : "=r" (status));
> 
> "L2 internal asynchronous error caused by L2 RAM double-bit ECC error"
> doesn't tell us if a CPU consumed the error, or if the error has caused a write
> to go missing. Without the classification, this means 'something bad
> happened'.
> 
> I'd prefer to panic() when we see one of these. I'd like it even more if
> firmware rebooted for us.

The EDAC subsystem allows to configure a panic() from userspace/sysfs.
So we can be flexible at this point I think.

> 
> >> +	if (status & L2ECTLR_L2_ASYNC_ERR) {
> >> +		status &= ~L2ECTLR_L2_ASYNC_ERR;
> >> +		asm("mcr p15, 1, %0, c9, c0, 3" : : "r" (status));
> 
> 4.3.49 "L2 Extended Control Register" of the A15 TRM says this field can be
> read-only/write-ignored for the normal world if NSACR.NS_L2ERR is 0.
> 
> How do we know if firmware has set this bit on all CPUs? We can't clear the
> error otherwise.

Valid point!
 
> 
> >> +		edac_printk(KERN_EMERG, DRIVER_NAME,
> >> +			    "L2 internal asynchronous error occurred!\n");
> >> +		edac_device_handle_ue(dci, 0, 0, dci->ctl_name);
> 
> >> +
> >> +		return IRQ_HANDLED;
> >> +	}
> >> +
> >> +	return IRQ_NONE;
> >> +}
> >> +
> >> +static int cortex_a15_l2_async_edac_probe(struct platform_device
> >> +*pdev) {
> >> +	struct edac_device_ctl_info *dci;
> >> +	struct device_node *np = pdev->dev.of_node;
> >> +	char *ctl_name = (char *)np->name;
> >> +	int i = 0, ret = 0, err_irq = 0, irq_count = 0;
> >> +
> >> +	/* We can have multiple CPU clusters with one INTERRIRQ per cluster
> >> +*/
> 
> Surely this an integration choice?
> 
> You're accessing the cluster through a cpu register in the handler, what
> happens if the interrupt is delivered to the wrong cluster?
> How do we know which interrupt maps to which cluster?
> How do we stop user-space 'balancing' the interrupts?

You are right, based on all your inputs I think we can stop using this driver
as generic A15 solution (at least I would need more time to do
the refactoring considering all points you stated and experienced already).

Thanks a lot!

- Wladislav

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