Hi Dirk,
On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 12:28 PM, Dirk Behme <dirk.behme@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 29.06.2017 11:27, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
CC clock, ARM, DT, PM people
TL;DR: Clocks may be in use by another CPU not running Linux, while Linux
disables them as being unused.
On Mon, Jun 26, 2017 at 1:30 PM, Dirk Behme <dirk.behme@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
With commit 72f5df2c2bbb6 ("clk: renesas: cpg-mssr: Migrate to
CLK_IS_CRITICAL") we are able to handle critical module clocks.
Introduce the same logic for critical core clocks.
Signed-off-by: Dirk Behme <dirk.behme@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
Commit
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/drivers/clk/renesas?id=72f5df2c2bbb66d4a555cb51eb9f412abf1af77f
is quite nice to avoid *module* clocks being disabled. Unfortunately,
there are *core* clocks, too. E.g. using an other OS on the Cortex R7
core of the r8a7795, the 'canfd' is a quite popular core clock which
shouldn't be disabled by Linux.
Therefore, this patch is a proposal to use the same 'mark clocks as
critical' logic implemented for the module clocks for the core
clocks, too.
Opinions?
On r8a7795, there are several Cortex A cores running Linux, and a Cortex
R7
core which may run another OS.
This is an interesting issue, and relevant to other SoCs, too.
In this particular case, the "canfd" clock is a core clock used as an
auxiliary clock for the CAN0, CAN1, and CANFD interfaces. This can lead
to three scenarios:
1. Linux controls all CAN interfaces
=> no issue,
2. The OS on the RT CPU controls all CAN interfaces
=> issue, Linux disables the clock
3. Mix of 1 and 2
=> More issues.
Of course this is not limited to clocks, but also to e.g. PM domains.
How can this be handled?
I believe just marking the "canfd" clock critical is not the right
solution,
as about any clock could be used by the RT CPU.
Still, Linux needs to be made aware that devices (clocks and PM domains)
are
controlled by another CPU/OS.
Should this be described in DT? It feels like software policy to me.
Note that we (mainline) currently don't describe the Cortex R7 core in DT.
Dirk: do you describe it?
No, we don't describe anything R7 related in DT, too.
Summary:
1. Core/module clocks are described in the clock driver (not in DT),
2. Unused clocks are disabled by CCF,
3. Clocks may be in use by the Real-Time CPU core, running another OS,
4. How to communicate to Linux which clocks are under control of the RT
CPU?
Thanks for your comments!
While I appreciated that the overall issue is discussed, I'm not sure if
there is anything really special we don't support generally, yet.
We have an infrastructure to mark clocks enabled anywhere else to be not
disabled by Linux kernel (CLK_IS_CRITICAL). From my point of view, for this
infrastructure, it doesn't matter, where this 'anywhere else' is. To take
some concrete Renesas RCar3 examples, from my point of view it doesn't
matter if its a GIC-400 clock enabled in the boot loader (U-Boot) or a CAN
clock enabled by the R7. In both cases marking them as critical on Linux
side does the trick.
Yes, it does the trick. But is it the proper solution?
The issue I just want to address (discuss) with this RFC patch is that for
Renesas RCar3 we have CLK_IS_CRITICAL support for module clocks, but not for
core clocks. From my point of view, this is a completely Renesas
implementation specific discussion.
Correct. How the Renesas CPG/MSSR driver decides which clocks are marked
critical is a Renesas-specific implementation issue.
And indeed, currently the driver only handles critical module clocks
(more specifically, the GIC module clock, due to the lack of runtime PM
support in the GIC driver).
It does not handle critical core clocks, as so far no use case required
such support.
So I would rephrase the initial sentence above
"Clocks may be in use by another CPU not running Linux, while Linux disables
them as being unused."
to anything like
"Clocks may be enabled (used) by others (U-Boot/CPUs/Hypervisors), while
Linux disables them as being unused"
If a clock is used by Linux, Linux must make sure it is enabled when
needed.
If a clock is needed to run Linux, without driver support, Linux must still
make sure it is enabled. This is were critical clocks enter the game.
The above includes CPU clocks.
If a clock is used by U-Boot, U-Boot must make sure it is enabled when
needed. Once U-Boot has transferred control to Linux, this no longer
matters.
if a clock is used by a HV, the HV must make sure it is enabled when
needed. I believe this is handled in secure mode? R-Car Gen3 SoCs already
have several module clocks that cannot be disabled (i.e. MSTPSRx != OR of
all yMSTPCRx).
If a clock is used by the RT CPU, the RT CPU must make sure it is enabled
when needed.
There are several options to do that:
- Secure mode,
- Communicating the clock requirements to Linux, either statically or
dynamically,
- DT? (but this is software policy?)
- ???
And I think this is completely addressed by CLK_IS_CRITICAL, as far as I can
see :)
While this is a solution that works (for your use case), IMHO it's not the
right thing to do.
However, if we decide to go this route, which other clocks should be marked
critical? Almost (all?) peripherals can be used by the RT CPU. Hence all
clocks should be enabled and marked critical, unconditionally?
