The following block change breaks boot on parisc-linux: commit 54efd50bfd873e2dbf784e0b21a8027ba4299a3e Author: Kent Overstreet <kent.overstreet@xxxxxxxxx> Date: Thu Apr 23 22:37:18 2015 -0700 block: make generic_make_request handle arbitrarily sized bios The way the block layer is currently written, it goes to great lengths to avoid having to split bios; upper layer code (such as bio_add_page()) checks what the underlying device can handle and tries to always create bios that don't need to be split. But this approach becomes unwieldy and eventually breaks down with stacked devices and devices with dynamic limits, and it adds a lot of complexity. If the block layer could split bios as needed, we could eliminate a lot of complexity elsewhere - particularly in stacked drivers. Code that creates bios can then create whatever size bios are convenient, and more importantly stacked drivers don't have to deal with both their own bio size limitations and the limitations of the (potentially multiple) devices underneath them. In the future this will let us delete merge_bvec_fn and a bunch of other code. We do this by adding calls to blk_queue_split() to the various make_request functions that need it - a few can already handle arbitrary size bios. Note that we add the call _after_ any call to blk_queue_bounce(); this means that blk_queue_split() and blk_recalc_rq_segments() don't need to be concerned with bouncing affecting segment merging. Some make_request_fn() callbacks were simple enough to audit and verify they don't need blk_queue_split() calls. The skipped ones are: * nfhd_make_request (arch/m68k/emu/nfblock.c) * axon_ram_make_request (arch/powerpc/sysdev/axonram.c) * simdisk_make_request (arch/xtensa/platforms/iss/simdisk.c) * brd_make_request (ramdisk - drivers/block/brd.c) * mtip_submit_request (drivers/block/mtip32xx/mtip32xx.c) * loop_make_request * null_queue_bio * bcache's make_request fns Some others are almost certainly safe to remove now, but will be left for future patches. Cc: Jens Axboe <axboe@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Al Viro <viro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Ming Lei <ming.lei@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Neil Brown <neilb@xxxxxxx> Cc: Alasdair Kergon <agk@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: dm-devel@xxxxxxxxxx Cc: Lars Ellenberg <drbd-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: drbd-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Cc: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@xxxxxxx> Cc: Geoff Levand <geoff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Jim Paris <jim@xxxxxxxx> Cc: Philip Kelleher <pjk1939@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Minchan Kim <minchan@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Nitin Gupta <ngupta@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Oleg Drokin <oleg.drokin@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: Andreas Dilger <andreas.dilger@xxxxxxxxx> Acked-by: NeilBrown <neilb@xxxxxxx> (for the 'md/md.c' bits) Acked-by: Mike Snitzer <snitzer@xxxxxxxxxx> Reviewed-by: Martin K. Petersen <martin.petersen@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Kent Overstreet <kent.overstreet@xxxxxxxxx> [dpark: skip more mq-based drivers, resolve merge conflicts, etc.] Signed-off-by: Dongsu Park <dpark@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Ming Lin <ming.l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <axboe@xxxxxx> This thread on the linux-parisc has most of the discussion and analysis: http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-parisc/msg06710.html Essentially, the SCSI layer underestimates the number of sg segments needed and we run off the end of the sg list and crash. This happens because the protect bit is ignored. As a result 4.3 and later kernels fail to boot. This includes the current Debian kernel for hppa. Hopefully, the block group can help resolve this issue. We can help with testing if needed. Thanks, Dave Anglin -- John David Anglin dave.anglin@xxxxxxxx -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-scsi" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html