Re: [RFC PATCH 3/3] spi: hisi-sfc-v3xx: Add prepare/unprepare methods to avoid race condition

[Yicong Yang <yangyicong@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 2020/5/27 17:33, Pratyush Yadav wrote:
> On 27/05/20 04:18PM, Yicong Yang wrote:
>> Hi Pratyush,
>>
>> On 2020/5/26 0:14, Pratyush Yadav wrote:
>>> Hi Yicong,
>>>
>>> On 21/05/20 07:23PM, Yicong Yang wrote:
>>>> The controller can be shared with the firmware, which may cause race
>>>> problems. As most read/write/erase/lock/unlock of spi-nor flash are
>>>> composed of a set of operations, while the firmware may use the controller
>>>> and start its own operation in the middle of the process started by the
>>>> kernel driver, which may lead to the kernel driver's function broken.
>>>>
>>>> Bit[20] in HISI_SFC_V3XX_CMD_CFG register plays a role of a lock, to
>>>> protect the controller from firmware access, which means the firmware
>>>> cannot reach the controller if the driver set the bit. Add prepare/
>>>> unprepare methods for the controller, we'll hold the lock in prepare
>>>> method and release it in unprepare method, which will solve the race
>>>> issue.
>>> I'm trying to understand the need for this change. What's wrong with
>>> performing the lock/unlock procedure in hisi_sfc_v3xx_exec_op()? You can 
>>> probably do something like:
>>>
>>>   hisi_sfc_v3xx_lock();
>>>   ret = hisi_sfc_v3xx_generic_exec_op(host, op, chip_select);
>>>   hisi_sfc_v3xx_unlock();
>>>   return ret;
>> if doing like this, suppose we perform a sequential operations like below:
>>
>> lock()->exec_op(cmd1)->unlock()->lock()->exec_op(cmd2)->unlock()->lock()->exec_op(cmd3)->unlock()
>>                        ^==========^is unlocked          ^==========^is unlocked
>>
>> As shown above, we cannot lock the device continuously during the whole operations.
> Correct. My argument is based on the assumption that lock() and unlock() 
> are cheap/fast operations. If you spend very little time in lock() and 
> unlock(), it doesn't make a big difference if you do all 3 operations in 
> one go or one at a time.

okay. we'd better not make such assumption and do what hardware suggests.


>
> In other words, since register write should be pretty fast, locking and 
> unlocking should be pretty fast. If we don't spend a lot of time in 
> lock() and unlock(), we don't gain a lot of performance by reducing 
> those calls.

I know your worries. But it won't reduce the performance as we only do lock
and unlock in the beginning or end. See what have implemented in spi-nor
framework, as for read:

->spi_nor_read()
--->spi_nor_lock_and_prep() // lock the device if necessary
--->spi_nor_read_data() // maybe called several times to read wanted bytes
--->spi_nor_unlock_and_unprep() // unlock the device

we don't call lock/unlock at every spi_nor_read_data(), but just in the beginning
/ending of the whole sequence. And we can do the same thing in
nand framework to avoid performance reduction, if prepare/unprepare is also needed.


>
>> But if we use upper layer method then it looks like
>>
>> prepare()->exec_op(cmd1)->exec_op(cmd2)->exec_op(cmd3)->unprepare()
>>         ^locked here                                              ^unlocked here
>>
>> we can hold the lock during the all 3 operations' execution.
> If you still think doing all operations in one go is a better idea, I  
> like Boris's idea of batching operations and its worth considering.

sure. it do worth discussion and maybe we need more suggestions.


>  
>>> What's the benefit of making upper layers do this? Acquiring the lock is 
>>> a simple register write, so it should be relatively fast. Unless there 
>>> is a lot of contention on the lock between the firmware and kernel, I 
>>> would expect the performance impact to be minimal. Maybe you can run 
>>> some benchmarks and see if there is a real difference.
>>>
>>>> Signed-off-by: Yicong Yang <yangyicong@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>> ---
>>>>  drivers/spi/spi-hisi-sfc-v3xx.c | 41 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
>>>>  1 file changed, 40 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>>>>
>>>> diff --git a/drivers/spi/spi-hisi-sfc-v3xx.c b/drivers/spi/spi-hisi-sfc-v3xx.c
>>>> index e3b5725..13c161c 100644
>>>> --- a/drivers/spi/spi-hisi-sfc-v3xx.c
>>>> +++ b/drivers/spi/spi-hisi-sfc-v3xx.c
>>>> @@ -163,7 +192,15 @@ static int hisi_sfc_v3xx_generic_exec_op(struct hisi_sfc_v3xx_host *host,
>>>>  					 u8 chip_select)
>>>>  {
>>>>  	int ret, len = op->data.nbytes;
>>>> -	u32 config = 0;
>>>> +	u32 config;
>>>> +
>>>> +	/*
>>>> +	 * The lock bit is in the command register. Clear the command
>>>> +	 * field with lock bit held if it has been set in
>>>> +	 * .prepare().
>>>> +	 */
>>>> +	config = readl(host->regbase + HISI_SFC_V3XX_CMD_CFG);
>>>> +	config &= HISI_SFC_V3XX_CMD_CFG_LOCK;
>>> This will unlock the controller _before_ the driver issues 
>>> hisi_sfc_v3xx_read_databuf(). I'm not very familiar with the hardware, 
>>> but to me it seems like it can lead to a race. What if the firmware 
>>> issues a command that over-writes the databuf (I assume this is shared 
>>> between the two) before the driver gets a chance to copy that data to 
>>> the kernel buffer?
>> It won't unlock the controller if it has been locked in prepare(). It will clear
>> the other bits in the register other than the lock bit. For single operations, as 
>> prepare() method is not called, the bit is 0 and it won't change here.
> Right. I misread the code. Sorry.
>


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