Re: [PATCH V1] PCI/AER: Configure ECRC only AER is native

[Vidya Sagar <vidyas@nvidia.com>]

On 1/12/2023 4:57 AM, Sathyanarayanan Kuppuswamy wrote:
> External email: Use caution opening links or attachments
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On 1/11/23 3:10 PM, Bjorn Helgaas wrote:
>> On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 01:42:21PM -0800, Sathyanarayanan Kuppuswamy wrote:
>>> On 1/11/23 12:31 PM, Vidya Sagar wrote:
>>>> As the ECRC configuration bits are part of AER registers, configure
>>>> ECRC only if AER is natively owned by the kernel.
>>>
>>> ecrc command line option takes "bios/on/off" as possible options. It
>>> does not clarify whether "on/off" choices can only be used if AER is
>>> owned by OS or it can override the ownership of ECRC configuration
>>> similar to pcie_ports=native option. Maybe that needs to be clarified.
>>
>> Good point, what do you think of an update like this:
>>
>> diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
>> index 6cfa6e3996cf..f7b40a439194 100644
>> --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
>> +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
>> @@ -4296,7 +4296,9 @@
>>                                specified, e.g., 12@pci:8086:9c22:103c:198f
>>                                for 4096-byte alignment.
>>                ecrc=           Enable/disable PCIe ECRC (transaction layer
>> -                             end-to-end CRC checking).
>> +                             end-to-end CRC checking).  Only effective
>> +                             if OS has native AER control (either granted by
>> +                             ACPI _OSC or forced via "pcie_ports=native").
>>                                bios: Use BIOS/firmware settings. This is the
>>                                the default.
>>                                off: Turn ECRC off
I'm also fine with this change. I'll take it in V2.
> 
> Looks fine. But do we even need "bios" option? Since it is the default
> value, I am not sure why we need to list that as an option again. IMO
> this could be removed.
I think we still need bios option. For example, consider a system where 
BIOS needs to keep ECRC enabled for integrity reasons but if kernel 
doesn't want it for perf reasons, then, kernel can always use 'ecrc=off' 
option.
> 
>>
>> I don't know whether the "ecrc=" parameter is really needed.  If we
>> were adding it today, I would ask "why not enable ECRC wherever it is
>> supported?"  If there are devices where it's broken, we could always
>> add quirks to disable it on a case-by-case basis.
> 
> Checking the original patch which added it, it looks like the intention
> is to give option to boost performance over integrity.
> 
> commit 43c16408842b0eeb367c23a6fa540ce69f99e347
> Author: Andrew Patterson <andrew.patterson@hp.com>
> Date:   Wed Apr 22 16:52:09 2009 -0600
> 
>      PCI: Add support for turning PCIe ECRC on or off
> 
>      Adds support for PCI Express transaction layer end-to-end CRC checking
>      (ECRC).  This patch will enable/disable ECRC checking by setting/clearing
>      the ECRC Check Enable and/or ECRC Generation Enable bits for devices that
>      support ECRC.
> 
>      The ECRC setting is controlled by the "pci=ecrc=<policy>" command-line
>      option. If this option is not set or is set to 'bios", the enable and
>      generation bits are left in whatever state that firmware/BIOS set them to.
>      The "off" setting turns them off, and the "on" option turns them on (if the
>      device supports it).
> 
>      Turning ECRC on or off can be a data integrity versus performance
>      tradeoff.  In theory, turning it on will catch more data errors, turning
>      it off means possibly better performance since CRC does not need to be
>      calculated by the PCIe hardware and packet sizes are reduced.
> 
> 
>>
>> But I think the patch below is the right thing to do for now.  Vidya,
> 
> Agree.
> 
>> did you trip over an issue because of this, e.g., a conflict between
>> firmware use of AER and Linux use of it?  If so, maybe we could
>> mention a symptom on the commit log.  But my guess is you probably
>> found this by inspection.
Not really. I was just checking when does kernel touch ECRC settings and 
happened to find this where it configures ECRC irrespective of its 
ownership of AER registers.

>>
>> Bjorn
>>
>>>> Signed-off-by: Vidya Sagar <vidyas@nvidia.com>
>>>> ---
>>>>   drivers/pci/pcie/aer.c | 3 +++
>>>>   1 file changed, 3 insertions(+)
>>>>
>>>> diff --git a/drivers/pci/pcie/aer.c b/drivers/pci/pcie/aer.c
>>>> index e2d8a74f83c3..730b47bdcdef 100644
>>>> --- a/drivers/pci/pcie/aer.c
>>>> +++ b/drivers/pci/pcie/aer.c
>>>> @@ -184,6 +184,9 @@ static int disable_ecrc_checking(struct pci_dev *dev)
>>>>    */
>>>>   void pcie_set_ecrc_checking(struct pci_dev *dev)
>>>>   {
>>>> +   if (!pcie_aer_is_native(dev))
>>>> +           return;
>>>> +
>>>>      switch (ecrc_policy) {
>>>>      case ECRC_POLICY_DEFAULT:
>>>>              return;
>>>
>>> --
>>> Sathyanarayanan Kuppuswamy
>>> Linux Kernel Developer
> 
> --
> Sathyanarayanan Kuppuswamy
> Linux Kernel Developer