Re: [patch 07/30] bcm43xx: Drain TX status before starting IRQs

[Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>]

On Tuesday 21 November 2006 07:43, Ray Lee wrote:
> On 11/18/06, Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net> wrote:
> > The regression turns out to be a locking problem involving bcm43xx,
> > wpa_supplicant, and NetworkManager. The exact cause is unknown; however,
> > this patch is clearly not the problem. Please
> > reinstate it for inclusion in -stable.
> 
> This patch is different from the patch that I claim is wrong. The patch that I
> think is bad *actually changes locking* (merge error?); it is different than
> the -stable patch that was submitted.
> 
> Michael et al please read the patch (diff portion) below as if you're seeing
> it for the first time. Please note the locking changes introduced.

If you read it carefully, you will notice that there aren't locking changes.
Only a few loads and stores to net_dev->trans_start are added.

> user:        Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>
> date:        Wed Nov 01 08:15:40 2006 +0500
> files:       drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_main.c
> description:
> [PATCH] bcm43xx: Fix low-traffic netdev watchdog TX timeouts
> 
> This fixes a netdev watchdog timeout problem.
> The software needs to call netif_tx_disable before running the
> hardware calibration code. The problem condition can be shown by the
> following timegraph.
> 
> |---5secs - ~10 jiffies time---|---|OOPS
> ^                              ^
> last real TX                   periodic work stops netif
> 
> At OOPS, the following happens:
> The watchdog timer triggers, because the timeout of 5secs
> is over. The watchdog first checks for stopped TX.
> _Usually_ TX is only stopped from the TX handler to indicate
> a full TX queue. But this is different. We need to stop TX here,
> regardless of the TX queue state. So the watchdog recognizes
> the stopped device and assumes it is stopped due to full
> TX queues (Which is a _wrong_ assumption in this case). It then
> tests how far the last TX has been in the past. If it's more than
> 5secs (which is the case for low or no traffic), it will fire
> a TX timeout.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>
> Signed-off-by: Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net>
> Signed-off-by: John W. Linville <linville@tuxdriver.com>
> 
> committer: John W. Linville <linville@laptop.(none)> 1162350940 -0500
> 
> 
> diff -r 41ff0150cbadd56e692f148adb1bfd4ca420e3e0 -r
> ca97546422bd9a52a7000607d657ca2915f31104
> drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_main.c
> --- a/drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_main.c       Wed Nov 01 08:15:39
> 2006 +0500
> +++ b/drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_main.c       Wed Nov 01 08:15:40
> 2006 +0500
> @@ -3163,9 +3163,11 @@ static void bcm43xx_periodic_work_handle
>  static void bcm43xx_periodic_work_handler(void *d)
>  {
>         struct bcm43xx_private *bcm = d;
> +       struct net_device *net_dev = bcm->net_dev;
>         unsigned long flags;
>         u32 savedirqs = 0;
>         int badness;
> +       unsigned long orig_trans_start = 0;
> 
>         mutex_lock(&bcm->mutex);
>         badness = estimate_periodic_work_badness(bcm->periodic_state);
> @@ -3173,7 +3175,18 @@ static void bcm43xx_periodic_work_handle
>                 /* Periodic work will take a long time, so we want it to
>                  * be preemtible.
>                  */
> -               netif_tx_disable(bcm->net_dev);
> +
> +               netif_tx_lock_bh(net_dev);
> +               /* We must fake a started transmission here, as we are going to
> +                * disable TX. If we wouldn't fake a TX, it would be possible to
> +                * trigger the netdev watchdog, if the last real TX is already
> +                * some time on the past (slightly less than 5secs)
> +                */
> +               orig_trans_start = net_dev->trans_start;
> +               net_dev->trans_start = jiffies;
> +               netif_stop_queue(net_dev);
> +               netif_tx_unlock_bh(net_dev);
> +
>                 spin_lock_irqsave(&bcm->irq_lock, flags);
>                 bcm43xx_mac_suspend(bcm);
>                 if (bcm43xx_using_pio(bcm))
> @@ -3198,6 +3211,7 @@ static void bcm43xx_periodic_work_handle
>                         bcm43xx_pio_thaw_txqueues(bcm);
>                 bcm43xx_mac_enable(bcm);
>                 netif_wake_queue(bcm->net_dev);
> +               net_dev->trans_start = orig_trans_start;
>         }
>         mmiowb();
>         spin_unlock_irqrestore(&bcm->irq_lock, flags);
> 
> or the patch via gitweb:
> http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=81e171b95d2d06a64465a1e6ab1e2fb864ea2448
> 
> Ray
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Greetings Michael.