xref: /linux/Documentation/PCI/pcieaer-howto.rst (revision 55d0969c451159cff86949b38c39171cab962069)
1.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
2.. include:: <isonum.txt>
3
4===========================================================
5The PCI Express Advanced Error Reporting Driver Guide HOWTO
6===========================================================
7
8:Authors: - T. Long Nguyen <tom.l.nguyen@intel.com>
9          - Yanmin Zhang <yanmin.zhang@intel.com>
10
11:Copyright: |copy| 2006 Intel Corporation
12
13Overview
14===========
15
16About this guide
17----------------
18
19This guide describes the basics of the PCI Express (PCIe) Advanced Error
20Reporting (AER) driver and provides information on how to use it, as
21well as how to enable the drivers of Endpoint devices to conform with
22the PCIe AER driver.
23
24
25What is the PCIe AER Driver?
26----------------------------
27
28PCIe error signaling can occur on the PCIe link itself
29or on behalf of transactions initiated on the link. PCIe
30defines two error reporting paradigms: the baseline capability and
31the Advanced Error Reporting capability. The baseline capability is
32required of all PCIe components providing a minimum defined
33set of error reporting requirements. Advanced Error Reporting
34capability is implemented with a PCIe Advanced Error Reporting
35extended capability structure providing more robust error reporting.
36
37The PCIe AER driver provides the infrastructure to support PCIe Advanced
38Error Reporting capability. The PCIe AER driver provides three basic
39functions:
40
41  - Gathers the comprehensive error information if errors occurred.
42  - Reports error to the users.
43  - Performs error recovery actions.
44
45The AER driver only attaches to Root Ports and RCECs that support the PCIe
46AER capability.
47
48
49User Guide
50==========
51
52Include the PCIe AER Root Driver into the Linux Kernel
53------------------------------------------------------
54
55The PCIe AER driver is a Root Port service driver attached
56via the PCIe Port Bus driver. If a user wants to use it, the driver
57must be compiled. It is enabled with CONFIG_PCIEAER, which
58depends on CONFIG_PCIEPORTBUS.
59
60Load PCIe AER Root Driver
61-------------------------
62
63Some systems have AER support in firmware. Enabling Linux AER support at
64the same time the firmware handles AER would result in unpredictable
65behavior. Therefore, Linux does not handle AER events unless the firmware
66grants AER control to the OS via the ACPI _OSC method. See the PCI Firmware
67Specification for details regarding _OSC usage.
68
69AER error output
70----------------
71
72When a PCIe AER error is captured, an error message will be output to
73console. If it's a correctable error, it is output as an info message.
74Otherwise, it is printed as an error. So users could choose different
75log level to filter out correctable error messages.
76
77Below shows an example::
78
79  0000:50:00.0: PCIe Bus Error: severity=Uncorrected (Fatal), type=Transaction Layer, id=0500(Requester ID)
80  0000:50:00.0:   device [8086:0329] error status/mask=00100000/00000000
81  0000:50:00.0:    [20] Unsupported Request    (First)
82  0000:50:00.0:   TLP Header: 04000001 00200a03 05010000 00050100
83
84In the example, 'Requester ID' means the ID of the device that sent
85the error message to the Root Port. Please refer to PCIe specs for other
86fields.
87
88AER Statistics / Counters
89-------------------------
90
91When PCIe AER errors are captured, the counters / statistics are also exposed
92in the form of sysfs attributes which are documented at
93Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-bus-pci-devices-aer_stats
94
95Developer Guide
96===============
97
98To enable error recovery, a software driver must provide callbacks.
99
100To support AER better, developers need to understand how AER works.
101
102PCIe errors are classified into two types: correctable errors
103and uncorrectable errors. This classification is based on the impact
104of those errors, which may result in degraded performance or function
105failure.
106
107Correctable errors pose no impacts on the functionality of the
108interface. The PCIe protocol can recover without any software
109intervention or any loss of data. These errors are detected and
110corrected by hardware.
111
112Unlike correctable errors, uncorrectable
113errors impact functionality of the interface. Uncorrectable errors
114can cause a particular transaction or a particular PCIe link
115to be unreliable. Depending on those error conditions, uncorrectable
116errors are further classified into non-fatal errors and fatal errors.
117Non-fatal errors cause the particular transaction to be unreliable,
118but the PCIe link itself is fully functional. Fatal errors, on
119the other hand, cause the link to be unreliable.
120
121When PCIe error reporting is enabled, a device will automatically send an
122error message to the Root Port above it when it captures
123an error. The Root Port, upon receiving an error reporting message,
124internally processes and logs the error message in its AER
125Capability structure. Error information being logged includes storing
126the error reporting agent's requestor ID into the Error Source
127Identification Registers and setting the error bits of the Root Error
128Status Register accordingly. If AER error reporting is enabled in the Root
129Error Command Register, the Root Port generates an interrupt when an
130error is detected.
131
132Note that the errors as described above are related to the PCIe
133hierarchy and links. These errors do not include any device specific
134errors because device specific errors will still get sent directly to
135the device driver.
136
137Provide callbacks
138-----------------
139
140callback reset_link to reset PCIe link
141~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
142
143This callback is used to reset the PCIe physical link when a
144fatal error happens. The Root Port AER service driver provides a
145default reset_link function, but different Upstream Ports might
146have different specifications to reset the PCIe link, so
147Upstream Port drivers may provide their own reset_link functions.
148
149Section 3.2.2.2 provides more detailed info on when to call
150reset_link.
151
152PCI error-recovery callbacks
153~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
154
155The PCIe AER Root driver uses error callbacks to coordinate
156with downstream device drivers associated with a hierarchy in question
157when performing error recovery actions.
158
159Data struct pci_driver has a pointer, err_handler, to point to
160pci_error_handlers who consists of a couple of callback function
161pointers. The AER driver follows the rules defined in
162pci-error-recovery.rst except PCIe-specific parts (e.g.
163reset_link). Please refer to pci-error-recovery.rst for detailed
164definitions of the callbacks.
165
166The sections below specify when to call the error callback functions.
167
168Correctable errors
169~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
170
171Correctable errors pose no impacts on the functionality of
172the interface. The PCIe protocol can recover without any
173software intervention or any loss of data. These errors do not
174require any recovery actions. The AER driver clears the device's
175correctable error status register accordingly and logs these errors.
176
177Non-correctable (non-fatal and fatal) errors
178~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
179
180If an error message indicates a non-fatal error, performing link reset
181at upstream is not required. The AER driver calls error_detected(dev,
182pci_channel_io_normal) to all drivers associated within a hierarchy in
183question. For example::
184
185  Endpoint <==> Downstream Port B <==> Upstream Port A <==> Root Port
186
187If Upstream Port A captures an AER error, the hierarchy consists of
188Downstream Port B and Endpoint.
189
190A driver may return PCI_ERS_RESULT_CAN_RECOVER,
191PCI_ERS_RESULT_DISCONNECT, or PCI_ERS_RESULT_NEED_RESET, depending on
192whether it can recover or the AER driver calls mmio_enabled as next.
193
194If an error message indicates a fatal error, kernel will broadcast
195error_detected(dev, pci_channel_io_frozen) to all drivers within
196a hierarchy in question. Then, performing link reset at upstream is
197necessary. As different kinds of devices might use different approaches
198to reset link, AER port service driver is required to provide the
199function to reset link via callback parameter of pcie_do_recovery()
200function. If reset_link is not NULL, recovery function will use it
201to reset the link. If error_detected returns PCI_ERS_RESULT_CAN_RECOVER
202and reset_link returns PCI_ERS_RESULT_RECOVERED, the error handling goes
203to mmio_enabled.
204
205Frequent Asked Questions
206------------------------
207
208Q:
209  What happens if a PCIe device driver does not provide an
210  error recovery handler (pci_driver->err_handler is equal to NULL)?
211
212A:
213  The devices attached with the driver won't be recovered. If the
214  error is fatal, kernel will print out warning messages. Please refer
215  to section 3 for more information.
216
217Q:
218  What happens if an upstream port service driver does not provide
219  callback reset_link?
220
221A:
222  Fatal error recovery will fail if the errors are reported by the
223  upstream ports who are attached by the service driver.
224
225
226Software error injection
227========================
228
229Debugging PCIe AER error recovery code is quite difficult because it
230is hard to trigger real hardware errors. Software based error
231injection can be used to fake various kinds of PCIe errors.
232
233First you should enable PCIe AER software error injection in kernel
234configuration, that is, following item should be in your .config.
235
236CONFIG_PCIEAER_INJECT=y or CONFIG_PCIEAER_INJECT=m
237
238After reboot with new kernel or insert the module, a device file named
239/dev/aer_inject should be created.
240
241Then, you need a user space tool named aer-inject, which can be gotten
242from:
243
244    https://github.com/intel/aer-inject.git
245
246More information about aer-inject can be found in the document in
247its source code.
248