Subject: Re: [PATCH] fix PHY polling system blocking

From: Stefani Seibold <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:54:02 +0100

Am Freitag, den 12.03.2010, 14:42 -0800 schrieb Andrew Morton:
> On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:50:58 +0100
> Stefani Seibold <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> > This patch fix the PHY poller, which can block the whole system. On a
> > Freescale PPC 834x this result in a delay of 450 us due the slow
> > communication with the PHY chip.
> > 
> > For PHY chips without interrupts, the status of the ethernet will be
> > polled every 2 sec. The poll function will read some register of the MII
> > PHY. The time between the sending the MII_READ_COMMAND and receiving the
> > result is more the 100 us on a PPC 834x.
> >    
> > The patch modifies the poller a lit bit. Only a link status state change
> > will result in a successive detection of the connection type. The poll
> > cycle on the other hand will be increased to every seconds.
> 
> You didn't tell us how many seconds.  That would be important?
> 

The old implementation would poll the PHC every 2 seconds, the new one
once per second.

> > Together this patch will prevent a blocking of nearly 400 us every two
> > seconds of the whole system on a PPC 834x.
> > 
> 
> I can't say that I really understand what you did - what functionality
> did we lose?
> 

There is not real drawback, only the detection of a connection type
change without unplugging the cable will not work. But this is more an
esoteric use case.

> Would it not be better to extend the phy state machine a bit?  When we
> detect the link status change, issue the MII command then arm the
> delayed-work timer to expire in a millisecond, then go in next time and
> read the result?
> 
> That might require fancy locking to prevent other threads of control
> from going in and mucking up the MII state.  Possibly leave phydev_lock
> held across that millisecond to keep other people away?
> 

You are right, that would be the best solution. But i am currently busy,
so this a fast interim solution ;-) It was also my approach, because it
the PHY communication in the most cases very slow. Maybe i will do this
in the near future.

> > 
> > ...
> > 
> > diff -u -N -r -p linux-2.6.33.orig/drivers/net/phy/phy.c linux-2.6.33/drivers/net//phy/phy.c
> > --- linux-2.6.33.orig/drivers/net/phy/phy.c	2010-02-24 19:52:17.000000000 +0100
> > +++ linux-2.6.33/drivers/net//phy/phy.c	2010-02-28 22:53:14.725464101 +0100
> 
> erp, your weird patch headers ("//") broke my seven-year-old script. 
> But I fixed it!
> 

Sorry, my fault. But now you have a better script.

> > @@ -871,9 +871,8 @@ void phy_state_machine(struct work_struc
> >  		case PHY_RUNNING:
> >  			/* Only register a CHANGE if we are
> >  			 * polling */
> > -			if (PHY_POLL == phydev->irq)
> > -				phydev->state = PHY_CHANGELINK;
> > -			break;
> > +			if (PHY_POLL != phydev->irq)
> > +				break;
> >  		case PHY_CHANGELINK:
> >  			err = phy_read_status(phydev);
> >  
> > diff -u -N -r -p linux-2.6.33.orig/drivers/net/phy/phy_device.c linux-2.6.33/drivers/net//phy/phy_device.c
> > --- linux-2.6.33.orig/drivers/net/phy/phy_device.c	2010-02-24 19:52:17.000000000 +0100
> > +++ linux-2.6.33/drivers/net//phy/phy_device.c	2010-02-28 22:53:14.726464145 +0100
> > @@ -161,7 +161,7 @@ struct phy_device* phy_device_create(str
> >  	dev->speed = 0;
> >  	dev->duplex = -1;
> >  	dev->pause = dev->asym_pause = 0;
> > -	dev->link = 1;
> > +	dev->link = 0;
> >  	dev->interface = PHY_INTERFACE_MODE_GMII;
> >  
> >  	dev->autoneg = AUTONEG_ENABLE;
> > @@ -694,10 +694,16 @@ int genphy_update_link(struct phy_device
> >  	if (status < 0)
> >  		return status;
> >  
> > -	if ((status & BMSR_LSTATUS) == 0)
> > +	if ((status & BMSR_LSTATUS) == 0) {
> > +		if (phydev->link==0)
> > +			return 1;
> >  		phydev->link = 0;
> > -	else
> > +	}
> > +	else {
> > +		if (phydev->link==1)
> > +			return 1;
> >  		phydev->link = 1;
> > +	}
> 
> Please don't invent new coding styles.  scripts/checkpatch.pl is here
> to help.
> 
> 

Will be fixed!