lkml.org 
[lkml]   [2008]   [Nov]   [6]   [last100]   RSS Feed
Views: [wrap][no wrap]   [headers]  [forward] 
 
Messages in this thread
/
Date
From
SubjectRe: [PATCH 16/16 v6] PCI: document the new PCI boot parameters
Greg KH wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 07, 2008 at 10:37:55AM +0800, Zhao, Yu wrote:
>> Greg KH wrote:
>>> On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 04:45:31PM +0800, Yu Zhao wrote:
>>>> Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt | 10 ++++++++++
>>>> 1 files changed, 10 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
>>>>
>>>> diff --git a/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
>>>> b/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
>>>> index 53ba7c7..5482ae0 100644
>>>> --- a/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
>>>> +++ b/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
>>>> @@ -1677,6 +1677,16 @@ and is between 256 and 4096 characters. It is
>>>> defined in the file
>>>> cbmemsize=nn[KMG] The fixed amount of bus space which is
>>>> reserved for the CardBus bridge's memory
>>>> window. The default value is 64 megabytes.
>>>> + assign-mmio=[dddd:]bb [X86] reassign memory resources of all
>>>> + devices under bus [dddd:]bb (dddd is the domain
>>>> + number and bb is the bus number).
>>>> + assign-pio=[dddd:]bb [X86] reassign io port resources of all
>>>> + devices under bus [dddd:]bb (dddd is the domain
>>>> + number and bb is the bus number).
>>>> + align-mmio=[dddd:]bb:dd.f [X86] relocate memory resources of a
>>>> + device to minimum PAGE_SIZE alignment (dddd is
>>>> + the domain number and bb, dd and f is the bus,
>>>> + device and function number).
>>> This seems like a big problem. How are we going to know to add these
>>> command line options for devices we haven't even seen/known about yet?
>>> How do we know the bus ids aren't going to change between boots (hint,
>>> they are, pci bus ids change all the time...)
>>> We need to be able to do this kind of thing dynamically, not fixed at
>>> boot time, which seems way to early to even know about this, right?
>>> thanks,
>>> greg k-h
>> Yes, I totally agree. Doing things dynamically is better.
>>
>> The purpose of these parameters is to rebalance and align resources for
>> device that has BARs encapsulated in various new capabilities (SR-IOV,
>> etc.), because most of existing BIOSes don't take care of those BARs.
>
> But how are you going to know what the proper device ids are going to
> be before the machine boots? I don't see how these options are ever
> going to work properly for a "real" user.
>
>> If we do resource rebalance after system is up, do you think there is any
>> side effect or impact to other subsystem other than PCI (e.g. MTRR)?
>
> I don't think so.
>
>> I haven't had much thinking on the dynamical resource rebalance. If you
>> have any idea about this, can you please suggest?
>
> Yeah, it's going to be hard :)
>
> We've thought about this in the past, and even Microsoft said it was
> going to happen for Vista, but they realized in the end, like we did a
> few years previously, that it would require full support of all PCI
> drivers as well (if you rebalance stuff that is already bound to a
> driver.) So they dropped it.
>
> When would you want to do this kind of rebalancing? Before any PCI
> driver is bound to any devices? Or afterwards?

I guess if we want the rebalance dynamic, then we should have it full --
the rebalance would be functional even after the driver is loaded.

But in most cases, there will be problem when we unload driver from a
hard disk controller, etc. We can mount root on a ramdisk and do the
rebalance there, but it's complicated for a real user.

So looks like doing rebalancing before any driver is bound to any device
is also a nice idea, if user can get a shell to do rebalance before
built-in PCI driver grabs device.

Regards,
Yu


\
 
 \ /
  Last update: 2008-11-07 05:01    [W:0.151 / U:0.448 seconds]
©2003-2020 Jasper Spaans|hosted at Digital Ocean and TransIP|Read the blog|Advertise on this site