On 01/18/2018 12:24 AM, Bart Van Assche wrote:
> When the SCSI scanning code discovers a SCSI device it calls the driver core
> function device_add() to associate a SCSI ULD with the device. The driver
> core invokes the probing function for the matching SCSI ULP, e.g. sd_probe().
> In order to minimize the time needed to scan SCSI targets that have a large
> number of LUNs, the SCSI disk driver scans LUNs asynchronously by starting
> the actual probing work asynchronously from inside sd_probe()
> 
> An unfortunate aspect of how SCSI disk probing works today is that there is
> unnecessary serialization between probing and removal activity. For a
> possible approach of how to increase SCSI disk probing concurrency, see also
> [PATCH] sd: Increase SCSI disk probing concurrency, linux-scsi mailing list,
> December 2017 (https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-scsi/msg115657.html).
> 
> A second unfortunate aspect of SCSI disk probing is that certain race
> conditions in the block layer are hit if removal starts before asynchronous
> probing has finished. This is because the driver core is unaware that the
> SCSI disk code works asynchronously.
> 
> Additionally, the SCSI disk asynchronous probing approach is incompatible
> with the power management code. The power management code calls
> wait_for_device_probe() in the driver core to wait for device probing
> activity to finish. wait_for_device_probe() however is unaware of the
> asynchronous probing in the SCSI sd driver and hence doesn't wait for the
> SCSI sd probing activity to finish.
> 
> My proposal is to hold a session to discus potential solutions for
> increasing SCSI disk probing concurrency in a way that is compatible with
> the driver core and the power management subsystem.
> 
Having submitted one attempt to fix this up myself I'd definitely be
interested in this.

Cheers,

Hannes
-- 
Dr. Hannes Reinecke                Teamlead Storage & Networking
h...@suse.de                                   +49 911 74053 688
SUSE LINUX GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg
GF: F. Imendörffer, J. Smithard, J. Guild, D. Upmanyu, G. Norton
HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg)

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