Re: [PATCH] 2.5.15 IDE 61

Martin Dalecki (dalecki@evision-ventures.com)
Tue, 14 May 2002 11:30:58 +0200


Uz.ytkownik Neil Conway napisa?:
> Martin Dalecki wrote:
>
>>Uz.ytkownik Neil Conway napisa?:
>>
>>>The hwgroup was serialized so that in certain cases, it can contain BOTH
>>>channels, and thus only one channel is active at a time (e.g. cmd640).
>>>With this patch, you are now serializing only channels, not hwgroups
>>>(which makes hwgroup totally redundant, yes?), and I can't see which bit
>>>of your patch protects the chipsets that need both channels to be
>>>serialized.
>>>
>>>I think I see where you're going with the cleanup (and this isn't
>>>unrelated to the conversation about IDE-62) but as it stands, this patch
>>>will IMHO totally fsck any machines with dodgy chipsets.
>>
>>No it will not, since we act serialized on ide_lock anyway.
>>However I have right now per channel (or serialization group)
>>lock running right now / modulo locking order problems.
>
>
> One of us is missing the point (and I'm the newbie so blame me ;-)), so
> here goes:
>
> Only the calls from the block layer to the request_fn are serialized by
> ide_lock. Not the actual data transfers. Here's the scenario:
>
> Firstly, an I/O request is queued by ide_do_request(), and then it
> returns. Let's assume that DMA is now in progress. Once
> ide_do_request() returns, the lock is released by the block layer. Now
> the corruption scenario: another request can come in for the other
> channel while our first I/O is in flight, and since the ide_lock isn't
> held, and the second channel isn't BUSY, ide_do_request() will be happy
> to try and start an I/O on that channel too. BOOM.
>
> Or is there a dumb mistake in my logic?

There is no problem to go in paralell on different channels for
requests. The serialization has only to be done
for the drive setup.

> Neil
> PS: I appreciate that your code is in a transition phase but I think
> it's desirable to avoid badly broken 2.5's all the same.
>
>

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/