Re: [PATCH] i2c: mux: pca954x: Disable cacheing of the last channel

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On 2019-11-20 10:21, Shubhrajyoti Datta wrote:
> Hi Peter ,
> thanks for the review,
> 
> On Tue, Nov 19, 2019 at 4:35 AM Peter Rosin <peda@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> On 2019-11-14 09:17, shubhrajyoti.datta@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>> From: Shubhrajyoti Datta <shubhrajyoti.datta@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>>
>>> In case of multimaster configuration the last channel cached value is
>>> not reliable. Basically the first processor/master does a write to the
>>> mux and then to the intended slave, it caches the value.
>>> Now the second processor/processor does a write to mux on another
>>> channel and writes to another slave.
>>> The first processor/master when it attempts to write the slave
>>> skips the mux as it relies on the mux channel being the same as the
>>> intended. This causes an issue.
>>>
>>> To fix that write always to the mux address.
>>
>> Thanks for your patch.
>>
>> However, I don't really see how this fixes anything. If you have
>> multiple masters competing for the same mux, all bets are off and any
>> solution not involving an out-of-band channel where the masters can
>> coordinate will be racy, broken and dangerous.
>> And since you need that
>> extra channel anyway, it might as well also be used to coordinate when
>> the cache needs to be invalidated.
>>
>> At the very least, all limitations needs to be carefully documented,
>> but that does not mean that I will ever like it. In short, I'm extremely
>> reluctant to add a glgllike this.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Peter
> 
> I agree does the below patch make sense.

This patch is severely white-space damaged and I have a hard time reading
the details so please fix your setup. However, I gather the idea is to
rely on having all masters configured to idle the mux when they don't use
it. That's also racy since multiple masters can all read the zero, and
deduce that the mux is free, then all of them write their thing to the
mux, and proceed as if they own it. That spells disaster. Also, I'm not
sure the 1 second timeout is OK since the the root adapter (along with
the mux) are potentially locked for this duration, thus blocking all other
I2C traffic.

Also, if you are relying on the mux being idle when unused, then you will
effectively not have a cache regardless of this patch, and the driver will
set the desired value on each transaction, which mean that the naming of
this new feature is wrong. Maybe name it something with "coordination" (a
bit long) or "arbitration" or something such instead?

It seems your hardware designers didn't think things through properly,
because I can't see a sane way to fix the race. Not without a separate
communications channel where the masters can coordinate. But I bet that
channel, if it even exists, is pretty damn hard to use if it wasn't
designed in from the start.

I think the traditional way to solve your problem is to have the masters
coordinate via some i2c arbitrator such as the i2c-arb-gpio-challenge
driver or a pca9541 chip or something. Then the muxing transactions,
which consist of multiple I2C transfers, can be handled as a unit.

I.e. with i2c-arb-gpio-challenge, you have two gpio lines where two
masters can coordinate, and even if they are both on the same I2C bus,
they can actually use the mux if and only if it is known to be free.

			       .-------.
	master 1  ------.      |       |----->
	 |  ^		|      |       |----->
	 |  |		|----->|  mux  |  .
	 V  |		|      |       |  .
	master 2  ------'      |       |----->
			       '-------'

The pca9541 can also handle two masters, but in that case the masters are
not really on the same I2C bus, at least not at the same time.

			.-----------.      .-------.
	master 1  ----->|           |      |       |----->
			|           |      |       |----->
			|  pca9541  |----->|  mux  |  .
			|           |      |       |  .
	master 2  ----->|           |      |       |----->
			'-----------'      '-------'

If you don't have something like that in your schematics, I think you
are just SOL, and anything you try will be broken in one way or another.

Trying to use the register in the mux for the needed coordination seems
very difficult. Maybe if there was a pair of unused registers in some
other device on the bus, or a couple of memory locations in an eeprom or
something, then that could perhaps be used as the i2c-arb-gpio-challenge
uses the gpios. I.e. write a new i2c-arb-reg-challenge driver or
something, if you see what I mean. Hmm, on second thought, eeproms might
not be so good if you expect to mux frequently...

Finally, I noticed a couple of spelling mistakes below.

> From 0ca65420b65514594a8252d1e9eeba64bea01da6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Shubhrajyoti Datta <shubhrajyoti.datta@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2019 11:15:25 +0530
> Subject: [PATCH] i2c: mux: pca954x: Disable cacheing of the last channel

"caching", as someone else already mentioned.

> 
> In case of multimaster configuration the last channel cached value is
> not reliable. To fix that write always to the mux address.
> Also use the 0 channel disable to arbitrate. If disabled only then write.
> Else wait for it to be disabled.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Shubhrajyoti Datta <shubhrajyoti.datta@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> 
>  .../devicetree/bindings/i2c/i2c-mux-pca954x.txt    |  1 +
>  drivers/i2c/muxes/i2c-mux-pca954x.c                | 49 +++++++++++++++++++---
>  2 files changed, 45 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/i2c/muxes/i2c-mux-pca954x.c
> b/drivers/i2c/muxes/i2c-mux-pca954x.c
> index 923aa3a..a7e3aa9 100644
> --- a/drivers/i2c/muxes/i2c-mux-pca954x.c
> +++ b/drivers/i2c/muxes/i2c-mux-pca954x.c
> @@ -42,6 +42,7 @@
>  #include <linux/i2c-mux.h>
>  #include <linux/interrupt.h>
>  #include <linux/irq.h>
> +#include <linux/jiffies.h>
>  #include <linux/module.h>
>  #include <linux/of.h>
>  #include <linux/of_device.h>
> @@ -55,6 +56,8 @@
> 
>  #define PCA954X_IRQ_OFFSET 4
> 
> +#define MUX_CHAN_TIMEOUT_US 1000000
> +
>  enum pca_type {
>   pca_9540,
>   pca_9542,
> @@ -85,6 +88,8 @@ struct pca954x {
>   const struct chip_desc *chip;
> 
>   u8 last_chan; /* last register value */
> + u8 last_chan_unchached; /* write channel register always */

..._uncached

But, since a rename might be in order, I don't know how relevant that
is...

Cheers,
Peter

> + bool channel_sel;
>   /* MUX_IDLE_AS_IS, MUX_IDLE_DISCONNECT or >= 0 for channel */
>   s8 idle_state;
> 
> @@ -229,6 +234,23 @@ static int pca954x_reg_write(struct i2c_adapter *adap,
>   I2C_SMBUS_BYTE, &dummy);
>  }
> 
> +/*
> + * Read from chip register. Don't use i2c_transfer()/i2c_smbus_xfer()
> + * as they will try to lock adapter a second time.
> + */
> +static int pca954x_reg_read(struct i2c_adapter *adap,
> +     struct i2c_client *client, u8 val)
> +{
> + union i2c_smbus_data data;
> + int ret;
> +
> + ret = __i2c_smbus_xfer(adap, client->addr, client->flags,
> +        I2C_SMBUS_READ, val,
> +        I2C_SMBUS_BYTE, &data);
> +
> + return ret ? ret :  data.byte;
> +}
> +
>  static int pca954x_select_chan(struct i2c_mux_core *muxc, u32 chan)
>  {
>   struct pca954x *data = i2c_mux_priv(muxc);
> @@ -236,6 +258,7 @@ static int pca954x_select_chan(struct i2c_mux_core
> *muxc, u32 chan)
>   const struct chip_desc *chip = data->chip;
>   u8 regval;
>   int ret = 0;
> + unsigned long timeout = jiffies + usecs_to_jiffies(MUX_CHAN_TIMEOUT_US);
> 
>   /* we make switches look like muxes, not sure how to be smarter */
>   if (chip->muxtype == pca954x_ismux)
> @@ -243,13 +266,26 @@ static int pca954x_select_chan(struct
> i2c_mux_core *muxc, u32 chan)
>   else
>   regval = 1 << chan;
> 
> + if (!data->last_chan_unchached) {
>   /* Only select the channel if its different from the last channel */
> - if (data->last_chan != regval) {
> - ret = pca954x_reg_write(muxc->parent, client, regval);
> - data->last_chan = ret < 0 ? 0 : regval;
> + if (data->last_chan != regval) {
> + ret = pca954x_reg_write(muxc->parent, client, regval);
> + data->last_chan = ret < 0 ? 0 : regval;
> + }
> + return ret;
>   }
> 
> - return ret;
> + do {
> + ret = pca954x_reg_read(muxc->parent, client, 0);
> + if (ret == 0) {
> + ret = pca954x_reg_write(muxc->parent, client, regval);
> + data->channel_sel = true;
> + return ret;
> + }
> + msleep(20);
> + } while (time_is_after_eq_jiffies(timeout));
> + data->channel_sel = false;
> + return -ETIMEDOUT;
>  }
> 
>  static int pca954x_deselect_mux(struct i2c_mux_core *muxc, u32 chan)
> @@ -259,7 +295,7 @@ static int pca954x_deselect_mux(struct
> i2c_mux_core *muxc, u32 chan)
>   s8 idle_state;
> 
>   idle_state = READ_ONCE(data->idle_state);
> - if (idle_state >= 0)
> + if (idle_state >= 0 &&  data->channel_sel)
>   /* Set the mux back to a predetermined channel */
>   return pca954x_select_chan(muxc, idle_state);
> 
> @@ -479,6 +515,9 @@ static int pca954x_probe(struct i2c_client *client,
>   if (idle_disconnect_dt)
>   data->idle_state = MUX_IDLE_DISCONNECT;
> 
> + data->last_chan_unchached = np &&
> + of_property_read_bool(np, "no-channel-cache");
> +
>   ret = pca954x_irq_setup(muxc);
>   if (ret)
>   goto fail_cleanup;
> 





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