SPAM Re: [ofw] Expose a vendor defined device in ibbus?

Thu Jan 29 01:57:14 PST 2009

Hi Deepak,

Sorry for that late reaction. Could not find time beforehand to look
into it... :(

I'm not sure, whether the advantages of your patch are worth the
deployment problems that it can cause (IMO).
Here are several ones at the first look:
    - one has to know all the IOC parameters at the time of
installation;
        And what if they are yet unknown (IOCs still not purchased) or
unknown to the guy (he doesn't know what IOC at all is) ?  :(
    - one has to enter IOC parameters during the installation in some
way;
        Changing INF file is not a convenient way. One has to provide
some GUI to edit the parameters during- and the Registry after the
installation;
    - having configured one node, one has to repeate all this work with
all the others or to prepare and clone the image;
    - if a new IOC has been added, one has to go through all the nodes
and to change the Registries. It may also require reimaging of all the
nodes;
    - what will happen during the WINOF package upgrade ? We don't want
user to repeat all this configuration work, do we ?

What do you think ?

________________________________

	From: ofw-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org
[mailto:ofw-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org] On Behalf Of Deepak Gupta
	Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 5:19 PM
	To: ofw at lists.openfabrics.org
	Subject: ***SPAM*** Re: [ofw] Expose a vendor defined device in
ibbus?

	Since I didn't receive any concrete response from the list about
the patch, I still have following questions unanswered:--

	1) I would like to know who is current owner of ibiou and get a
feedback on whether above patch is acceptable.
	Or Do you suggest some modifications on it ?

	2) If we are ok with this patch then what time frame should we
set for it. Should we target it for coming 2.1 release or for post 2.1
releases?

	3) Also, I want to move ahead for implementing IOCTL layer in
ibiou for creation of child devices and IOC listings on user request. Is
it acceptable to implement this IOCTL layer for device creations and IOC
listings in ibiou and you suggest to achieve the same through some other
means?

	I want to reiterate the purpose of this patch:--

	This patch is for creating multiple PDO's for a HCA to IOC path
as configured by the user in INF file.
	It will help in having multiple sessions with the IOC and hence
will give some user configurations for fail over.

	Behavior change from current ibiou implementation:--

	Currently ibiou simply discovers the IOCs and creates child
devices for the IOCs discovered.
	This patch will create multiple child devices for HCA to IOC
paths as configured by the user in INF file.
	If there are no child device configurations for a particular IOC
then no devices will be created for that IOC and hence will not appear
in device manager's device tree.

	This is just a first draft patch to show the usability and we
have plans to implement IOCTLs in ibiou for child device creations and
for listing the reachable IOC PATHs so that a user application can be
written which can list the IOCs and local HCAs to the user and user can
send IOCTLs to create devices for the ULPs.

	Regards
	Deepak

	On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 7:09 PM, Deepak Gupta
<deepak.gupta at qlogic.com> wrote:

		Forgot to include the list.

		Regards
		Deepak

		---------- Forwarded message ----------
		From: Deepak Gupta <deepak.gupta at qlogic.com>
		Date: Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 5:07 PM
		Subject: Re: [ofw] Expose a vendor defined device in
ibbus?

		To: Fab Tillier <ftillier at windows.microsoft.com>

		Fab, Nice to see your response.
		Please see below.

		On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 11:09 PM, Fab Tillier
<ftillier at windows.microsoft.com> wrote:

			I don't have time to look at this in depth, but
I can tell you from past experience that having a single PDO for an IOC
leads to trouble if you ever have multiple HCAs in the system.  If you
have a miniport driver (like NDIS or StorPort), the port driver takes
care of DMA mappings of user-provided buffers.  That DMA mapping goes
down to the PCI driver for the particular HCA, so you could potentially
have a mapping that isn't valid for one of the multiple HCAs in the
system.  It's best IMO to have a PDO per IOC per HCA (this allows
automatic path migration to work in multi-port HCAs), and push failover
between IOCs to a higher level (LBFO/MPIO).

		I had the same concern while implementing the patch.
		So I tried to dig into the stack till h/w drivers and it
came to me that all DMA mappings are being
		handled by PCI driver.
		So this patch creates PDO's per IOC per HCA. 
		User can specify the child device descriptions in INF
file (later on we can think of having a IOCTL interface in ibiou) and
HCA to IOC path.
		ibiou will create child PDO's only if HCA to IOC path is
present.

		Any more suggestions are welcome!!!

		Regards
		Deepak

			-Fab

			From: mailmeatdkg at gmail.com
[mailto:mailmeatdkg at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Deepak Gupta
			Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 6:41 AM
			To: James Yang
			Cc: Leonid Keller; Fab Tillier;
ofw at lists.openfabrics.org 

			Subject: Re: [ofw] Expose a vendor defined
device in ibbus?

			Did any one get the chance to have a look at the
patch?

			I am really concerned with the tight coupling of
representing each single IOC as a single PDO.

			Regards
			Deepak

			On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 5:55 PM, Deepak Gupta
<deepak.gupta at qlogic.com> wrote:

			All,

			Based on James patch of creating user defined
devices tied to local HCA ports, I have created a first draft patch
attached herewith 
			to allow "ibiou" to create user defined devices
which will associate with IOC paths.

			This patch does the following:-

			Now ibiou will not create child devices on it's
own when it discovers a IOC.
			Instead it will create child devices only when
it is instructed to do so.
			For the sake of this patch, currently it uses
name/description of the devices hard coded into INF file of ibiou
driver.
			Later on we can implement a IOCTL to pass this
information to the driver (more below)

			It will make a listing of devices to be created
in it's DriverEntry routine.
			When it will get IOC_PNP_ADD pnp events, it will
check in device list prepare
			earlier. If it finds device(s) in it's list
which corresponds to the new IOC
			discovered then it will create those child
devices and a similar mechanism
			will happen when ibiou will get IOC_PNP_ADD
event.

			This more of a initial patch for giving an
insight into what we want to achieve.
			On a longer run we are thinking of providing a
IOCTL support in ibiou driver for creating child devices (like
vnic/srp/etc) and
			differnet vendor specific applications can
create those devices and have their driver loaded on top of that.

			Following is the advantage of this
functionality:-

			   Earlier there was only one device created per
IOC on host side.
			   Now there can be multiple devices on host
side per IOC as configured in the registry.
			   It will be many to one function i.e there can
be many devices on host side which will target to the same IOC.
			   It will be like having different sessions
with the same IOC.

			Please have a look at it and let me know of your
comments/suggestions/feeback.

			NOTE--> Device descriptions in the INF file of
this patch creates devices that corresponds to a IOC PATH (CAGUID and
IOCGUID).
			        Those values are local to my machine and
you should change it according to your fabric.

			Regards
			Deepak

			On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 1:37 AM, James Yang
<jyang at xsigo.com> wrote:

				The proposal is to use registry key to
define vendor devices, and the registry key is global to the driver. The
assumption is that multiple HCA cards will have the same vendor defined
devices. It cannot support one HCA with vendor-A device, and the other
HCA with vendor-B device, in the same system. At default all hcas will
have IPoIB as child devices.

				Thanks,

				James

________________________________

				From: Leonid Keller
[mailto:leonid at mellanox.co.il] 
				Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2009 5:57 AM
				To: James Yang; Deepak Gupta; Fab
Tillier

				Cc: ofw at lists.openfabrics.org
				Subject: RE: [ofw] Expose a vendor
defined device in ibbus?

				After first look: why did you put the
list of the created devices into Globals (and not, say, FDO) ?

				How it will work for multi-home machine
? (several HCA cards)

				Would anybode like to check it for
various partition keys ?

________________________________

				From: ofw-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org
[mailto:ofw-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org] On Behalf Of James Yang
				Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 10:11 PM
				To: Deepak Gupta; Fab Tillier
				Cc: ofw at lists.openfabrics.org
				Subject: RE: [ofw] Expose a vendor
defined device in ibbus?

				Hi,

				Please review the patch to create user
defined devices by reading from registry. By default there is only one
IpoIB device enabled in mlx4_hca.inx file. This patch will only work for
ConnectX.

				The paritition key if set to default to
FFFF, I didn't test on other value. And the Ioctl part to add partition
key may also need to be verified.

				Thanks,

				James

________________________________

				From: mailmeatdkg at gmail.com
[mailto:mailmeatdkg at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Deepak Gupta
				Sent: Monday, January 05, 2009 10:51 PM
				To: Fab Tillier
				Cc: Tzachi Dar; James Yang;
ofw at lists.openfabrics.org
				Subject: Re: [ofw] Expose a vendor
defined device in ibbus?

				Have a gr8 New Year to all the
members!!!.

				Do you we any updates on "vendor defined
device in ibbus"?

				I wanted to create multiple vnic
interfaces irrespective of number of reachable IOCs.

				Currently I am creating vnic child
devices on "root" bus.
				Inside VNIC driver, I am looking for
arrival GUID_IB_AL_INTERFACE and hence contacting the IBAL.
				But since vnic devices are root
enumerated, VNIC driver gets loaded very earlier in boot phase (Before
"Extended Base" group to which IB Stack drivers belong) and hence VNIC
device interfaces are not getting initialized properly.

				If we are providing a vendor defined
device functionality in ibbus in near future, then it would be worth for
me to wait for it.

				Can any one please comment on this.

				Regards
				Deepak

				On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 1:12 PM, Deepak
Gupta <deepak.gupta at qlogic.com> wrote:

				All,

				I came across one more question in my
mind which are I think is not clear to me after reading the whole
thread.

				In new design being discussed:- 
				Are we making sure that we can have more
than one child devices configured for the same IOC.
				Currently, there is one child device
created per IOC discovered.

				Having more than one child device
configured for same IOC is a requirement if a user wants two different
ULP interfaces to be created on host side.
				Consider a case in which a host is
connected to a single IOC and IOC is connected to a ethernet network via
switch.
				If there are two different IP subnets
then there is a requirement of two different Ethernet interfaces on the
host side too.

				Please let me know if you need more
clarification of my question.

				Regards
				Deepak

				On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 2:19 PM, Deepak
Gupta <deepak.gupta at qlogic.com> wrote:

				Please see below.

				Regards
				Deepak

				On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 12:42 AM, Fab
Tillier <ftillier at windows.microsoft.com> wrote:

				> On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 11:43 PM, Fab
Tillier
				> <ftillier at windows.microsoft.com>
wrote:

				>> Are there other properties that I
have missed that are needed?
				>
				> We need a way in which devices created
should be configured for
				> failovers ( ULPs like VNIC, SRP need
more configurable failovers).
				> Looking at IBAL's code it create the
devices based on the reachable
				> IOC's and thus failover's are possible
across the HCA/ports and not
				> across two different IOCs.
				> Users can have a case in which two
different IOCs connected to same
				> physical network/storage (redundancy
is provided for high availability)
				> and want a failover across the IOCs.

				This would be done via LBFO for network
devices, and MPIO for storage devices.  I think having the bus driver
report a single IOC that really maps to two IOCs on the fabric is asking
for management problems.  Further, LBFO/MPIO can provide failover
between different device types, so the failover devices don't have to be
identical HW.

				I don't know about how MPIO works. But
for LBFO,  BundleID param will have to be included in extended params
then so that user gets the freedom of bundling  different failover
configurations.

				-Fab

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***SPAM*** Re: [ofw] Expose a vendor defined device in ibbus?

SPAM Re: [ofw] Expose a vendor defined device in ibbus?