[RFC PATCH] drm: Create documentation about device resets

[Christian König]

Am 23.01.23 um 21:26 schrieb André Almeida:
> Create a document that specifies how to deal with DRM device resets for
> kernel and userspace drivers.
>
> Signed-off-by: André Almeida <andrealmeid at igalia.com>
> ---
>   Documentation/gpu/drm-reset.rst | 51 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>   Documentation/gpu/index.rst     |  1 +
>   2 files changed, 52 insertions(+)
>   create mode 100644 Documentation/gpu/drm-reset.rst
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/drm-reset.rst b/Documentation/gpu/drm-reset.rst
> new file mode 100644
> index 000000000000..0dd11a469cf9
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/Documentation/gpu/drm-reset.rst
> @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
> +================
> +DRM Device Reset
> +================
> +
> +The GPU stack is really complex and is prone to errors, from hardware bugs,
> +faulty applications and everything in the many layers in between. To recover
> +from this kind of state, sometimes is needed to reset the GPU. Unproper handling
> +of GPU resets can lead to an unstable userspace. This page describes what's the
> +expected behaviour from DRM drivers to do in those situations, from usermode
> +drivers and compositors as well.
> +
> +Robustness
> +----------
> +
> +First of all, application robust APIs, when available, should be used. This
> +allows the application to correctly recover and continue to run after a reset.
> +Apps that doesn't use this should be promptly killed when the kernel driver
> +detects that it's in broken state. Specifically guidelines for some APIs:
> +

> +- OpenGL: During a reset, KMD kill processes that haven't ARB Robustness
> +  enabled, assuming they can't recover.

This is a pretty clear NAK from my side to this approach. The KMD should 
never mess with an userspace process directly in such a way.

Instead use something like this "OpenGL: KMD signals the abortion of 
submitted commands and the UMD should then react accordingly and abort 
the application.".

> +- Vulkan: Assumes that every app is able to deal with ``VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST``,
> +  so KMD doesn't kill any. If it doesn't do it right, it's considered a broken
> +  application and UMD will deal with it.

Again, pleas remove the "KMD kill" reference.

> +
> +Kernel mode driver
> +------------------
> +
> +The KMD should be able to detect that something is wrong with the application

Please replace *should* with *must* here, this is mandatory or otherwise 
core memory management can run into deadlocks during reclaim.

Regards,
Christian.

> +and that a reset is needed to take place to recover the device (e.g. an endless
> +wait). It needs to properly track the context that is broken and mark it as
> +dead, so any other syscalls to that context should be further rejected. The
> +other contexts should be preserved when possible, avoid crashing the rest of
> +userspace. KMD can ban a file descriptor that keeps causing resets, as it's
> +likely in a broken loop.
> +
> +User mode driver
> +----------------
> +
> +During a reset, UMD should be aware that rejected syscalls indicates that the
> +context is broken and for robust apps the recovery should happen for the
> +context. Non-robust apps would be already terminated by KMD. If no new context
> +is created for some time, it is assumed that the recovery didn't work, so UMD
> +should terminate it.
> +
> +Compositors
> +-----------
> +
> +(In the long term) compositors should be robust as well to properly deal with it
> +errors. Init systems should be aware of the compositor status and reset it if is
> +broken.
> diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/index.rst b/Documentation/gpu/index.rst
> index b99dede9a5b1..300b2529bd39 100644
> --- a/Documentation/gpu/index.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/gpu/index.rst
> @@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ Linux GPU Driver Developer's Guide
>      drm-mm
>      drm-kms
>      drm-kms-helpers
> +   drm-reset
>      drm-uapi
>      drm-usage-stats
>      driver-uapi