RTEMS classic networking: fixed FXP driver works under QEMU on Linux

Chris Johns chrisj at rtems.org
Wed Sep 21 02:59:00 UTC 2016


On 21/09/2016 09:47, Pavel Pisa wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> the driver works after hours of problem seeking
> in incorrect directions.
>
> I have debugged, examined and patched both, RTEMS and QEMU.
> The main problem is quite simple. Update of RTEMS interrupts
> processing disable level type interrupts when they arrive
> and the driver/daemon has to re-enable interrupt source
> on the interrupt controller level.
>
> Generally, idea to disable interrupt source at hard interrupt
> time and do all processing outside of interrupt is the
> the best solution for RT system. But I consider actual
> behavior seriously broken. It is for longer description.

I am not so sure it is seriously broken. There looks like issue that 
needs to be handled but that is all.

If the interrupt is level and directly using the PIC then you would see 
the issue you saw. The solution maybe as simple as changing the code in 
BSP_dispatch_isr to be:

  if (irq_trigger[vector] == INTR_TRIGGER_LEVEL && SHARED)
    ...

where SHARED is a fast means of finding the type of interrupt. I think 
this change would have broken the interrupt server at the time I fixed 
this code because the interrupt server was using unique. That has changed.

> But if you consider shared interrupts (all PCI ones on PC
> for example) then the correct behavior is to use hard IRQ
> to disable/gate interrupt on given device level
> (not all sharing devices at controller level) and release
> worker thread for each device from corresponding
> hard IRQ and left the scheduler to select between these
> according to the priority.

This is not the model that is used on this arch or others, eg ARM. There 
is a single thread to receive the interrupt and handlers are called from 
that thread's context to check and process the specific interrupt. If 
you do not mask the interrupt at the controller level the interrupt 
server thread can never run. We just sit in a loop handling the interrupt.

I think what we have now with the interrupt server is fine. It means we 
are using threads as soon as we can and with SMP I think that helps.

> When more important/critical
> device finishes its IRQ processing, it enables IRQ
> on given device level and processing of its interrupts
> in time is possible.
>
> Actual state pushes device drivers to attempt re-enable
> IRQ on controller level.

If you use the shared interrupt server this is managed for you. For a 
unique interrupt attaching directly to the PIC this has changed so yes 
it is broken. I did not consider this case.

> But if IRQ is re-enabled by hight
> priority device worker thread in case that there exists
> lower priority device sharing the IRQ which is still signalling
> IRQ, then without gating on device level this has to lead
> to livelock. Cotroller fires IRQ dispatch, that releases
> high priority device driver, that finds nothing to do and reenables
> IRQ on the controller level.

The current code in 4.12 has been tested on a real PC that has the 
spurious interrupt issue with 4 NICs shared across PCI interrupts using 
LibBSD without an issue. I tested this under load. Before the changes 
the platform was broken for real-time, the spurious handler did a printk 
and fired all the time once the load went up.

>
> There is option to make things work even with shared IRQs
> if gating on device level is not available. And it is
> to have counted disable on the controller level which ensures
> that IRQ is re-enabled only after all devices worker
> threads finish processing. But priority rules are broken in that
> case as well.
>
> I know that there is interrupt server option but base
> interrupts should be working and not broken.
>

I have ticks, uart etc on edge and PCI on shared all working.

> Shared edge trigerred interrupts processing is complex
> problem either. I think that I have provided analysis
> years ago for RTEMS.

Shared edge? I do not think that can happen on a PC given edge relates 
back to the ISA bus.

>
> ....
>
> found it
>
> https://lists.rtems.org/pipermail/users/2008-May/018775.html
>
> If I could find month somewhere, I would try provide
> changes which could go under critique and testing .....
>

The changes I did fix the spurious interrupt issue that has been in 
RTEMS on this platform for years. I tracked the FreeBSD kernel's 
handling of the AT pic and what it does. You need to step carefully with 
this code and touching the PIC. What we have now is aligned to FreeBSD 
which partially explains the issue you have had. I considered it a good 
base given it's wide PC support.

Finally this code should be migrated to support APIC and that changes 
things again.

Chris

> Anyway, back to solve Saeed Ehteshamifar problem with
> lack of network supporting environment for his dynamic
> loading task. I have tested it on Linux, Debian.
> I have done setup without helper scripts and toolsfrom
> QEMU or other system. I decided to use separate
> "network segment" for testing. The wire for L2/ethernet
> layer is created by
>
>    ip tuntap add tap1 mode tap user pi
>    ip link set tap1 up
>
> You need root access.
> I have connected this stub to Linux TCP/IP networking
> subsystem by
>
>    ip addr add 192.168.3.1/24 dev tap1
>    ip link set tap1 up
>
> You need to select address from private address range.
> Check that whole range, in above case 192.168.3.0
> to 192.168.3.255 does not overlap with networks
> visible from your computer. It should be really
> isolated island. The kernel does default setup
> of routing to the range
>
>    ip route show
>
>    192.168.3.0/24 dev tap1  proto kernel  scope link  src 192.168.3.1
>
> To keep range separate you should not have enabled forwarding
>
>    cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
>
> should show 0 or you need to setup iptables or check and set
> routing rules to keep island network.
>
> I start RTEMS application by command
>
> qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -kernel $APP_BINARY \
>        -vga cirrus \
>        -append "--console=/dev/com1" \
>        -serial stdio \
>        -net nic,vlan=1,macaddr=be:be:be:10:00:01,model=i82557b \
>        -net tap,ifname=tap1,vlan=1,script=no,downscript=no  \
>
> You can add "-s -S" for debugging by GDB "target remote localhost:1234"
> Be carefull, if you want to set breakpoints then setting them when
> in real mode at address 0xffff0 is not good idea. You need
> to be in virtual space of RTEMS application after its load
> to set software breakpoints. But there are two or three HW
> breakpoints emulated. Decide for some function and use
>
>    hbreak rtems_fxp_attach
>    c
>
> When the function is reached you can insert regular SW
> breakpoints.
>
> When application runs, you can access it from Linux system.
> The configured address has to be withing island network range.
> I.e.
>
>    ping 192.168.3.66
>
> The netwok card should be found by ARP broadcast coming
> to QEMU where RTEMS responds that it is its address.
> You can use
>
>    arping -i tap1 192.168.3.66
>
> or
>
>   arping -i tap1 be:be:be:10:00:01
>
> to check lowest level connection.
>
> The OMK template includes application "appnet" which uses
> RTEMS integrated telnet to access RTEMS shell remotely.
>
>    telnet 192.168.3.66
>
> See
>
>    http://rtime.felk.cvut.cz/gitweb/rtems-devel.git/tree/HEAD:/rtems-omk-template/appnet
>
> The config
>
> static struct rtems_bsdnet_ifconfig netdriver_config = {
>          .name = "fxp1" /*RTEMS_BSP_NETWORK_DRIVER_NAME*/,
>          .attach = rtems_fxp_attach /*RTEMS_BSP_NETWORK_DRIVER_ATTACH*/,
>          .next = NULL,
>          .ip_address = "192.168.3.66",
>          .ip_netmask = "255.255.255.0",
>          .hardware_address = ethernet_address,
>          .ignore_broadcast = 0,
>          .mtu = 0,
>          .rbuf_count = 0,
>          .xbuf_count = 0,
>          .port = 0,
>          .irno = 0,
>          .bpar = 0,
>          .drv_ctrl = NULL
> };
>
> struct rtems_bsdnet_config rtems_bsdnet_config = {
>          .ifconfig = &netdriver_config,
> /*      .bootp = rtems_bsdnet_do_bootp,*/
> /*      .bootp = rtems_bsdnet_do_dhcp,*/
> #if 0
>          .bootp = rtems_bsdnet_do_dhcp_failsafe,
> #endif
>          .network_task_priority = 0,             /* 100        */
> #if 1
>          .mbuf_bytecount = 256 * 1024,           /* 64 kbytes  */
>          .mbuf_cluster_bytecount = 256 * 1024,   /* 128 kbytes */
> #else
>          .mbuf_bytecount = 2048 * 1024,          /* 2 MB */
>          .mbuf_cluster_bytecount = 2048 * 1024,  /* 2 MB */
> #endif
>          .hostname = NULL,
>          .domainname = NULL,
>          .gateway = "192.168.3.1",
>          .log_host = NULL,
>          .name_server = { "NULL" },
>          .ntp_server = { "NULL" },
>          .sb_efficiency = 0,
>          .udp_tx_buf_size = 0,                   /* UDP TX: 9216 bytes */
>          .udp_rx_buf_size = 0,                   /* UDP RX: 40 * (1024 + sizeof(struct sockaddr_in)) */
>          .tcp_tx_buf_size = 0,                   /* TCP TX: 16 * 1024 bytes */
>          .tcp_rx_buf_size = 0,                   /* TCP TX: 16 * 1024 bytes */
> };
>
> This is for static IP addresses on isolated island network.
> You can interconnect the island with external systems
> over that IP level forwarding or use ETHERNEL level bridge.
> Something like
>
>    brctl addbr my_bridge
>    ip link set my_bridge up
>    brctl addif my_bridge eth0
>    brctl addif my_bridge tap1
>    brctl show my_bridge
>
> or by newer command
>
>    ip link add my_bridge type bridge
>    ip link set tap1 master my_bridge
>    ip link set dev eth0 down
>    ip addr flush dev eth0
>    ip link set dev eth0 up
>    ip link set eth0 master my_bridge
>    ip link set dev my_bridge up
>
> If you do not need to connect to the system running under QEMU
> from host system, then you can use simple NAT integrated in QEMU
> for outgoing connections. QEMU options
>
>        -net nic,vlan=1,macaddr=be:be:be:10:00:01,model=i82557b \
>        -net user,vlan=1 \
>
> Best wishes,
>
>                 Pavel
>
> PS: it would be nice to have some example for libbsd based x86
>      or other arch QEMU setup on Linux.
>


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