[PATCH 0/2] powerpc/papr_scm: Workaround for failure of drc bind after kexec

Vaibhav Jain vaibhav at linux.ibm.com
Tue Jun 25 00:59:11 AEST 2019


Presently an error is returned in response to hcall H_SCM_BIND_MEM when a
new kernel boots on lpar via kexec. This prevents papr_scm from registering
drc memory regions with nvdimm. The error reported is of the form below:

"papr_scm ibm,persistent-memory:ibm,pmemory at 44100002: bind err: -68"

On investigation it was revealed that phyp returns this error as previous
kernel did not completely release bindings for drc scm-memory blocks and
hence phyp rejected request for re-binding these block to lpar with error
H_OVERLAP. Also support for a new H_SCM_UNBIND_ALL is recently added which
is better suited for releasing all the bound scm-memory block from an lpar.

So leveraging new hcall H_SCM_UNBIND_ALL, we can workaround H_OVERLAP issue
during kexec by forcing an unbind of all drm scm-memory blocks and issuing
H_SCM_BIND_MEM to re-bind the drc scm-memory blocks to lpar. This sequence
will also be needed when a new kernel boot on lpar after previous kernel
panicked and it never got an opportunity to call H_SCM_UNBIND_MEM/ALL.

Hence this patch-set implements following changes to papr_scm module:

* Update it to use H_SCM_UNBIND_ALL instead of H_SCM_UNBIND_MEM

* In case hcall H_SCM_BIND_MEM fails with error H_OVERLAP, force
  H_SCM_UNBIND_ALL and retry the bind operation again.

With the patch-set applied re-bind of drc scm-memory to lpar succeeds after
a kexec to new kernel as illustrated below:

# Old kernel
$ sudo ndctl list -R
[
  {
    "dev":"region0",
    <snip>
    ....
  }
]
# kexec to new kernel
$ sudo kexec --initrd=... vmlinux
...
...
I'm in purgatory
...
papr_scm ibm,persistent-memory:ibm,pmemory at 44100002: Un-binding and retrying
...
# New kernel
$ sudo ndctl list -R
$ sudo ndctl list -R
[
  {
    "dev":"region0",
    <snip>
    ....
  }
]


Vaibhav Jain (2):
  powerpc/papr_scm: Update drc_pmem_unbind() to use H_SCM_UNBIND_ALL
  powerpc/papr_scm: Force a scm-unbind if initial scm-bind fails

 arch/powerpc/include/asm/hvcall.h         |  2 +-
 arch/powerpc/platforms/pseries/papr_scm.c | 60 ++++++++++++++++++++---
 2 files changed, 53 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

-- 
2.21.0



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