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Date:      Fri, 6 Dec 2013 13:52:06 -0700
From:      Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com>
To:        John-Mark Gurney <jmg@funkthat.com>
Cc:        Eitan Adler <lists@eitanadler.com>, "freebsd-arch@freebsd.org" <arch@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: hw.pci.do_power_nodriver=3
Message-ID:  <91CBC153-C832-4350-8E19-24783A1CFA63@bsdimp.com>
In-Reply-To: <20131206202616.GH55638@funkthat.com>
References:  <CAF6rxg=cSkTGLFZCeeg6C0V=frQN1iYtpLZBrNAu4WAQCX63Lw@mail.gmail.com> <CAF6rxgmeBAa9LK%2BHWU7NKUkW6RZvk_dNGDpN%2BJ43L=BdUsqHwQ@mail.gmail.com> <E24C9357-B0A8-48D1-8D80-DAC5B09580EF@bsdimp.com> <20131206202616.GH55638@funkthat.com>

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On Dec 6, 2013, at 1:26 PM, John-Mark Gurney wrote:

> Warner Losh wrote this message on Thu, Dec 05, 2013 at 22:43 -0700:
>>=20
>> On Dec 5, 2013, at 9:12 PM, Eitan Adler wrote:
>>> Is there any reason we can not set  hw.pci.do_power_nodriver=3D3 by =
default?
>>>=20
>>> My understanding is that there were problems with hardware being
>>> powered off and not being powered back on when drivers were loaded.
>>> Is this still a concern? If yes, can we flip the switch in HEAD and
>>> fix the drivers?
>>=20
>> The reason it was for Adaptec RAID controllers.
>>=20
>> They had a weird topology:
>>=20
>>                            <-------------------- aac based card =
-------------------------->
>> 	pci bus ---- pci bridge ---- pci bus ---+----- some chip with =
driver
>>                                                                       =
 +----- chip without driver
>>=20
>> so, when the enumeration code saw that there was no driver attached =
to the second chip, it would power it down. Turns out, this chip, while =
it didn't have a driver, was critical to the proper functioning of the =
RAID card. Scott Long turned off the default power saving because he was =
worried there were other parts like this. In addition, in an abundance =
of caution, he also created stub drivers for the second chip for each of =
the then known aac cards.
>>=20
>> Since then, it is unknown if others have followed this design or not, =
so it is unknown our exposure if we were to flip this to have a =
different default.
>=20
> Should we flip this on by default in HEAD to help expose these issues?
> It is expected that people running HEAD spend a little time helping us
> debug issues, and if they don't want to take the risk, they can change
> the default...
>=20
> Then maybe after a few years, maybe not 11, but for 12, we can keep it
> on by default for a release?

Scott and I talked about a possible solution that would be safe. Once I =
have that implemented, we can likely switch things over...

Warner




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