12.2. General Architecture
Prev | Chapter 12. Common Access Method SCSI Controllers | Next

## 12.2. General Architecture

CAM stands for Common Access Method. It is a generic way to address the I/O buses in a SCSI-like way. This allows a separation of the generic device drivers from the drivers controlling the I/O bus: for example the disk driver becomes able to control disks on both SCSI, IDE, and/or any other bus so the disk driver portion does not have to be rewritten (or copied and modified) for every new I/O bus. Thus the two most important active entities are:

- Peripheral Modules - a driver for peripheral devices (disk, tape, CD-ROM, etc.)

- SCSI Interface Modules (SIM) - a Host Bus Adapter drivers for connecting to an I/O bus such as SCSI or IDE.

A peripheral driver receives requests from the OS, converts them to a sequence of SCSI commands and passes these SCSI commands to a SCSI Interface Module. The SCSI Interface Module is responsible for passing these commands to the actual hardware (or if the actual hardware is not SCSI but, for example, IDE then also converting the SCSI commands to the native commands of the hardware).

Because we are interested in writing a SCSI adapter driver here, from this point on we will consider everything from the SIM standpoint.

A typical SIM driver needs to include the following CAM-related header files:

#include <cam/cam.h> #include <cam/cam_ccb.h> #include <cam/cam_sim.h> #include <cam/cam_xpt_sim.h> #include <cam/cam_debug.h> #include <cam/scsi/scsi_all.h>

The first thing each SIM driver must do is register itself with the CAM subsystem. This is done during the driver's `xxx_attach()` function (here and further xxx_ is used to denote the unique driver name prefix). The `xxx_attach()` function itself is called by the system bus auto-configuration code which we do not describe here.

This is achieved in multiple steps: first it is necessary to allocate the queue of requests associated with this SIM:

struct cam_devq *devq; if(( devq = cam_simq_alloc(SIZE) )==NULL) { error; /* some code to handle the error */ }

Here `SIZE` is the size of the queue to be allocated, maximal number of requests it could contain. It is the number of requests that the SIM driver can handle in parallel on one SCSI card. Commonly it can be calculated as:

SIZE = NUMBER_OF_SUPPORTED_TARGETS * MAX_SIMULTANEOUS_COMMANDS_PER_TARGET

Next we create a descriptor of our SIM:

struct cam_sim *sim; if(( sim = cam_sim_alloc(action_func, poll_func, driver_name, softc, unit, max_dev_transactions, max_tagged_dev_transactions, devq) )==NULL) { cam_simq_free(devq); error; /* some code to handle the error */ }

Note that if we are not able to create a SIM descriptor we free the devq also because we can do nothing else with it and we want to conserve memory.

If a SCSI card has multiple SCSI buses on it then each bus requires its own cam_sim structure.

An interesting question is what to do if a SCSI card has more than one SCSI bus, do we need one devq structure per card or per SCSI bus? The answer given in the comments to the CAM code is: either way, as the driver's author prefers.

The arguments are:

- `action_func` - pointer to the driver's `xxx_action` function.

  `static void fsfuncxxx_action (` | struct cam_sim *sim union ccb *ccb`)`; |

  `struct cam_sim *sim, union ccb *ccb` ;

- `poll_func` - pointer to the driver's `xxx_poll()`

  `static void fsfuncxxx_poll (` | struct cam_sim *sim`)`; |

  `struct cam_sim *sim` ;

- driver_name - the name of the actual driver, such as “ncr” or “wds”.

- softc - pointer to the driver's internal descriptor for this SCSI card. This pointer will be used by the driver in future to get private data.

- unit - the controller unit number, for example for controller “wds0” this number will be 0

- max_dev_transactions - maximal number of simultaneous transactions per SCSI target in the non-tagged mode. This value will be almost universally equal to 1, with possible exceptions only for the non-SCSI cards. Also the drivers that hope to take advantage by preparing one transaction while another one is executed may set it to 2 but this does not seem to be worth the complexity.

- max_tagged_dev_transactions - the same thing, but in the tagged mode. Tags are the SCSI way to initiate multiple transactions on a device: each transaction is assigned a unique tag and the transaction is sent to the device. When the device completes some transaction it sends back the result together with the tag so that the SCSI adapter (and the driver) can tell which transaction was completed. This argument is also known as the maximal tag depth. It depends on the abilities of the SCSI adapter.

Finally we register the SCSI buses associated with our SCSI adapter:

if(xpt_bus_register(sim, bus_number) != CAM_SUCCESS) { cam_sim_free(sim, /*free_devq*/ TRUE); error; /* some code to handle the error */ }

If there is one devq structure per SCSI bus (i.e., we consider a card with multiple buses as multiple cards with one bus each) then the bus number will always be 0, otherwise each bus on the SCSI card should be get a distinct number. Each bus needs its own separate structure cam_sim.

After that our controller is completely hooked to the CAM system. The value of devq can be discarded now: sim will be passed as an argument in all further calls from CAM and devq can be derived from it.

CAM provides the framework for such asynchronous events. Some events originate from the lower levels (the SIM drivers), some events originate from the peripheral drivers, some events originate from the CAM subsystem itself. Any driver can register callbacks for some types of the asynchronous events, so that it would be notified if these events occur.

A typical example of such an event is a device reset. Each transaction and event identifies the devices to which it applies by the means of “path”. The target-specific events normally occur during a transaction with this device. So the path from that transaction may be re-used to report this event (this is safe because the event path is copied in the event reporting routine but not deallocated nor passed anywhere further). Also it is safe to allocate paths dynamically at any time including the interrupt routines, although that incurs certain overhead, and a possible problem with this approach is that there may be no free memory at that time. For a bus reset event we need to define a wildcard path including all devices on the bus. So we can create the path for the future bus reset events in advance and avoid problems with the future memory shortage:

struct cam_path *path; if(xpt_create_path(&path, /*periph*/NULL, cam_sim_path(sim), CAM_TARGET_WILDCARD, CAM_LUN_WILDCARD) != CAM_REQ_CMP) { xpt_bus_deregister(cam_sim_path(sim)); cam_sim_free(sim, /*free_devq*/TRUE); error; /* some code to handle the error */ } softc->wpath = path; softc->sim = sim;

As you can see the path includes:

- ID of the peripheral driver (NULL here because we have none)

- ID of the SIM driver (`cam_sim_path(sim)`)

- SCSI target number of the device (CAM_TARGET_WILDCARD means “all devices”)

- SCSI LUN number of the subdevice (CAM_LUN_WILDCARD means “all LUNs”)

If the driver can not allocate this path it will not be able to work normally, so in that case we dismantle that SCSI bus.

And we save the path pointer in the softc structure for future use. After that we save the value of sim (or we can also discard it on the exit from `xxx_probe()` if we wish).

That is all for a minimalistic initialization. To do things right there is one more issue left.

For a SIM driver there is one particularly interesting event: when a target device is considered lost. In this case resetting the SCSI negotiations with this device may be a good idea. So we register a callback for this event with CAM. The request is passed to CAM by requesting CAM action on a CAM control block for this type of request:

struct ccb_setasync csa; xpt_setup_ccb(&csa.ccb_h, path, /*priority*/5); csa.ccb_h.func_code = XPT_SASYNC_CB; csa.event_enable = AC_LOST_DEVICE; csa.callback = xxx_async; csa.callback_arg = sim; xpt_action((union ccb *)&csa);

Now we take a look at the `xxx_action()` and `xxx_poll()` driver entry points.

`static void fsfuncxxx_action (` | struct cam_sim *sim union ccb *ccb`)`; |

`struct cam_sim *sim, union ccb *ccb` ;

Do some action on request of the CAM subsystem. Sim describes the SIM for the request, CCB is the request itself. CCB stands for “CAM Control Block”. It is a union of many specific instances, each describing arguments for some type of transactions. All of these instances share the CCB header where the common part of arguments is stored.

CAM supports the SCSI controllers working in both initiator (“normal”) mode and target (simulating a SCSI device) mode. Here we only consider the part relevant to the initiator mode.

There are a few function and macros (in other words, methods) defined to access the public data in the struct sim:

- `cam_sim_path(sim)` - the path ID (see above)

- `cam_sim_name(sim)` - the name of the sim

- `cam_sim_softc(sim)` - the pointer to the softc (driver private data) structure

- `cam_sim_unit(sim)` - the unit number

- `cam_sim_bus(sim)` - the bus ID

To identify the device, `xxx_action()` can get the unit number and pointer to its structure softc using these functions.

The type of request is stored in `ccb->ccb_h.func_code`. So generally `xxx_action()` consists of a big switch:

struct xxx_softc *softc = (struct xxx_softc *) cam_sim_softc(sim); struct ccb_hdr *ccb_h = &ccb->ccb_h; int unit = cam_sim_unit(sim); int bus = cam_sim_bus(sim); switch(ccb_h->func_code) { case ...: ... default: ccb_h->status = CAM_REQ_INVALID; xpt_done(ccb); break; }

As can be seen from the default case (if an unknown command was received) the return code of the command is set into `ccb->ccb_h.status` and the completed CCB is returned back to CAM by calling `xpt_done(ccb)`.

`xpt_done()` does not have to be called from `xxx_action()`: For example an I/O request may be enqueued inside the SIM driver and/or its SCSI controller. Then when the device would post an interrupt signaling that the processing of this request is complete `xpt_done()` may be called from the interrupt handling routine.

Actually, the CCB status is not only assigned as a return code but a CCB has some status all the time. Before CCB is passed to the `xxx_action()` routine it gets the status CCB_REQ_INPROG meaning that it is in progress. There are a surprising number of status values defined in `/sys/cam/cam.h` which should be able to represent the status of a request in great detail. More interesting yet, the status is in fact a “bitwise or” of an enumerated status value (the lower 6 bits) and possible additional flag-like bits (the upper bits). The enumerated values will be discussed later in more detail. The summary of them can be found in the Errors Summary section. The possible status flags are:

- CAM_DEV_QFRZN - if the SIM driver gets a serious error (for example, the device does not respond to the selection or breaks the SCSI protocol) when processing a CCB it should freeze the request queue by calling `xpt_freeze_simq()`, return the other enqueued but not processed yet CCBs for this device back to the CAM queue, then set this flag for the troublesome CCB and call `xpt_done()`. This flag causes the CAM subsystem to unfreeze the queue after it handles the error.

- CAM_AUTOSNS_VALID - if the device returned an error condition and the flag CAM_DIS_AUTOSENSE is not set in CCB the SIM driver must execute the REQUEST SENSE command automatically to extract the sense (extended error information) data from the device. If this attempt was successful the sense data should be saved in the CCB and this flag set.

- CAM_RELEASE_SIMQ - like CAM_DEV_QFRZN but used in case there is some problem (or resource shortage) with the SCSI controller itself. Then all the future requests to the controller should be stopped by `xpt_freeze_simq()`. The controller queue will be restarted after the SIM driver overcomes the shortage and informs CAM by returning some CCB with this flag set.

- CAM_SIM_QUEUED - when SIM puts a CCB into its request queue this flag should be set (and removed when this CCB gets dequeued before being returned back to CAM). This flag is not used anywhere in the CAM code now, so its purpose is purely diagnostic.

The function `xxx_action()` is not allowed to sleep, so all the synchronization for resource access must be done using SIM or device queue freezing. Besides the aforementioned flags the CAM subsystem provides functions `xpt_release_simq()` and `xpt_release_devq()` to unfreeze the queues directly, without passing a CCB to CAM.

The CCB header contains the following fields:

- path - path ID for the request

- target_id - target device ID for the request

- target_lun - LUN ID of the target device

- timeout - timeout interval for this command, in milliseconds

- timeout_ch - a convenience place for the SIM driver to store the timeout handle (the CAM subsystem itself does not make any assumptions about it)

- flags - various bits of information about the request spriv_ptr0, spriv_ptr1 - fields reserved for private use by the SIM driver (such as linking to the SIM queues or SIM private control blocks); actually, they exist as unions: spriv_ptr0 and spriv_ptr1 have the type (void *), spriv_field0 and spriv_field1 have the type unsigned long, sim_priv.entries[0].bytes and sim_priv.entries[1].bytes are byte arrays of the size consistent with the other incarnations of the union and sim_priv.bytes is one array, twice bigger.

The recommended way of using the SIM private fields of CCB is to define some meaningful names for them and use these meaningful names in the driver, like:

#define ccb_some_meaningful_name sim_priv.entries[0].bytes #define ccb_hcb spriv_ptr1 /* for hardware control block */

The most common initiator mode requests are:

- XPT_SCSI_IO - execute an I/O transaction

  The instance “struct ccb_scsiio csio” of the union ccb is used to transfer the arguments. They are:

  - cdb_io - pointer to the SCSI command buffer or the buffer itself

  - cdb_len - SCSI command length

  - data_ptr - pointer to the data buffer (gets a bit complicated if scatter/gather is used)

  - dxfer_len - length of the data to transfer

  - sglist_cnt - counter of the scatter/gather segments

  - scsi_status - place to return the SCSI status

  - sense_data - buffer for the SCSI sense information if the command returns an error (the SIM driver is supposed to run the REQUEST SENSE command automatically in this case if the CCB flag CAM_DIS_AUTOSENSE is not set)

  - sense_len - the length of that buffer (if it happens to be higher than size of sense_data the SIM driver must silently assume the smaller value) resid, sense_resid - if the transfer of data or SCSI sense returned an error these are the returned counters of the residual (not transferred) data. They do not seem to be especially meaningful, so in a case when they are difficult to compute (say, counting bytes in the SCSI controller's FIFO buffer) an approximate value will do as well. For a successfully completed transfer they must be set to zero.

  - tag_action - the kind of tag to use:

    - CAM_TAG_ACTION_NONE - do not use tags for this transaction

    - MSG_SIMPLE_Q_TAG, MSG_HEAD_OF_Q_TAG, MSG_ORDERED_Q_TAG - value equal to the appropriate tag message (see /sys/cam/scsi/scsi_message.h); this gives only the tag type, the SIM driver must assign the tag value itself

  The general logic of handling this request is the following:

  The first thing to do is to check for possible races, to make sure that the command did not get aborted when it was sitting in the queue:

  struct ccb_scsiio *csio = &ccb->csio; if ((ccb_h->status & CAM_STATUS_MASK) != CAM_REQ_INPROG) { xpt_done(ccb); return; }

  Also we check that the device is supported at all by our controller:

  if(ccb_h->target_id > OUR_MAX_SUPPORTED_TARGET_ID || cch_h->target_id == OUR_SCSI_CONTROLLERS_OWN_ID) { ccb_h->status = CAM_TID_INVALID; xpt_done(ccb); return; } if(ccb_h->target_lun > OUR_MAX_SUPPORTED_LUN) { ccb_h->status = CAM_LUN_INVALID; xpt_done(ccb); return; }

  Then allocate whatever data structures (such as card-dependent hardware control block) we need to process this request. If we can not then freeze the SIM queue and remember that we have a pending operation, return the CCB back and ask CAM to re-queue it. Later when the resources become available the SIM queue must be unfrozen by returning a ccb with the `CAM_SIMQ_RELEASE` bit set in its status. Otherwise, if all went well, link the CCB with the hardware control block (HCB) and mark it as queued.

  struct xxx_hcb *hcb = allocate_hcb(softc, unit, bus); if(hcb == NULL) { softc->flags |= RESOURCE_SHORTAGE; xpt_freeze_simq(sim, /*count*/1); ccb_h->status = CAM_REQUEUE_REQ; xpt_done(ccb); return; } hcb->ccb = ccb; ccb_h->ccb_hcb = (void *)hcb; ccb_h->status |= CAM_SIM_QUEUED;

  Extract the target data from CCB into the hardware control block. Check if we are asked to assign a tag and if yes then generate an unique tag and build the SCSI tag messages. The SIM driver is also responsible for negotiations with the devices to set the maximal mutually supported bus width, synchronous rate and offset.

  hcb->target = ccb_h->target_id; hcb->lun = ccb_h->target_lun; generate_identify_message(hcb); if( ccb_h->tag_action != CAM_TAG_ACTION_NONE ) generate_unique_tag_message(hcb, ccb_h->tag_action); if( !target_negotiated(hcb) ) generate_negotiation_messages(hcb);

  Then set up the SCSI command. The command storage may be specified in the CCB in many interesting ways, specified by the CCB flags. The command buffer can be contained in CCB or pointed to, in the latter case the pointer may be physical or virtual. Since the hardware commonly needs physical address we always convert the address to the physical one.

  A NOT-QUITE RELATED NOTE: Normally this is done by a call to `vtophys()`, but for the PCI device (which account for most of the SCSI controllers now) drivers' portability to the Alpha architecture the conversion must be done by `vtobus()` instead due to special Alpha quirks. [IMHO it would be much better to have two separate functions, `vtop()` and `ptobus()` then `vtobus()` would be a simple superposition of them.] In case if a physical address is requested it is OK to return the CCB with the status CAM_REQ_INVALID, the current drivers do that. But it is also possible to compile the Alpha-specific piece of code, as in this example (there should be a more direct way to do that, without conditional compilation in the drivers). If necessary a physical address can be also converted or mapped back to a virtual address but with big pain, so we do not do that.

  if(ccb_h->flags & CAM_CDB_POINTER) { /* CDB is a pointer */ if(!(ccb_h->flags & CAM_CDB_PHYS)) { /* CDB pointer is virtual */ hcb->cmd = vtobus(csio->cdb_io.cdb_ptr); } else { /* CDB pointer is physical */ #if defined(__alpha__) hcb->cmd = csio->cdb_io.cdb_ptr | alpha_XXX_dmamap_or ; #else hcb->cmd = csio->cdb_io.cdb_ptr ; #endif } } else { /* CDB is in the ccb (buffer) */ hcb->cmd = vtobus(csio->cdb_io.cdb_bytes); } hcb->cmdlen = csio->cdb_len;

  Now it is time to set up the data. Again, the data storage may be specified in the CCB in many interesting ways, specified by the CCB flags. First we get the direction of the data transfer. The simplest case is if there is no data to transfer:

  int dir = (ccb_h->flags & CAM_DIR_MASK); if (dir == CAM_DIR_NONE) goto end_data;

  Then we check if the data is in one chunk or in a scatter-gather list, and the addresses are physical or virtual. The SCSI controller may be able to handle only a limited number of chunks of limited length. If the request hits this limitation we return an error. We use a special function to return the CCB to handle in one place the HCB resource shortages. The functions to add chunks are driver-dependent, and here we leave them without detailed implementation. See description of the SCSI command (CDB) handling for the details on the address-translation issues. If some variation is too difficult or impossible to implement with a particular card it is OK to return the status CAM_REQ_INVALID. Actually, it seems like the scatter-gather ability is not used anywhere in the CAM code now. But at least the case for a single non-scattered virtual buffer must be implemented, it is actively used by CAM.

  int rv; initialize_hcb_for_data(hcb); if((!(ccb_h->flags & CAM_SCATTER_VALID)) { /* single buffer */ if(!(ccb_h->flags & CAM_DATA_PHYS)) { rv = add_virtual_chunk(hcb, csio->data_ptr, csio->dxfer_len, dir); } } else { rv = add_physical_chunk(hcb, csio->data_ptr, csio->dxfer_len, dir); } } else { int i; struct bus_dma_segment *segs; segs = (struct bus_dma_segment *)csio->data_ptr; if ((ccb_h->flags & CAM_SG_LIST_PHYS) != 0) { /* The SG list pointer is physical */ rv = setup_hcb_for_physical_sg_list(hcb, segs, csio->sglist_cnt); } else if (!(ccb_h->flags & CAM_DATA_PHYS)) { /* SG buffer pointers are virtual */ for (i = 0; i < csio->sglist_cnt; i++) { rv = add_virtual_chunk(hcb, segs[i].ds_addr, segs[i].ds_len, dir); if (rv != CAM_REQ_CMP) break; } } else { /* SG buffer pointers are physical */ for (i = 0; i < csio->sglist_cnt; i++) { rv = add_physical_chunk(hcb, segs[i].ds_addr, segs[i].ds_len, dir); if (rv != CAM_REQ_CMP) break; } } } if(rv != CAM_REQ_CMP) { /* we expect that add_*_chunk() functions return CAM_REQ_CMP * if they added a chunk successfully, CAM_REQ_TOO_BIG if * the request is too big (too many bytes or too many chunks), * CAM_REQ_INVALID in case of other troubles */ free_hcb_and_ccb_done(hcb, ccb, rv); return; } end_data:

  If disconnection is disabled for this CCB we pass this information to the hcb:

  if(ccb_h->flags & CAM_DIS_DISCONNECT) hcb_disable_disconnect(hcb);

  If the controller is able to run REQUEST SENSE command all by itself then the value of the flag CAM_DIS_AUTOSENSE should also be passed to it, to prevent automatic REQUEST SENSE if the CAM subsystem does not want it.

  The only thing left is to set up the timeout, pass our hcb to the hardware and return, the rest will be done by the interrupt handler (or timeout handler).

  ccb_h->timeout_ch = timeout(xxx_timeout, (caddr_t) hcb, (ccb_h->timeout * hz) / 1000); /* convert milliseconds to ticks */ put_hcb_into_hardware_queue(hcb); return;

  And here is a possible implementation of the function returning CCB:

  static void free_hcb_and_ccb_done(struct xxx_hcb *hcb, union ccb *ccb, u_int32_t status) { struct xxx_softc *softc = hcb->softc; ccb->ccb_h.ccb_hcb = 0; if(hcb != NULL) { untimeout(xxx_timeout, (caddr_t) hcb, ccb->ccb_h.timeout_ch); /* we're about to free a hcb, so the shortage has ended */ if(softc->flags & RESOURCE_SHORTAGE) { softc->flags &= ~RESOURCE_SHORTAGE; status |= CAM_RELEASE_SIMQ; } free_hcb(hcb); /* also removes hcb from any internal lists */ } ccb->ccb_h.status = status | (ccb->ccb_h.status & ~(CAM_STATUS_MASK|CAM_SIM_QUEUED)); xpt_done(ccb); }

- XPT_RESET_DEV - send the SCSI “BUS DEVICE RESET” message to a device

  There is no data transferred in CCB except the header and the most interesting argument of it is target_id. Depending on the controller hardware a hardware control block just like for the XPT_SCSI_IO request may be constructed (see XPT_SCSI_IO request description) and sent to the controller or the SCSI controller may be immediately programmed to send this RESET message to the device or this request may be just not supported (and return the status CAM_REQ_INVALID). Also on completion of the request all the disconnected transactions for this target must be aborted (probably in the interrupt routine).

  Also all the current negotiations for the target are lost on reset, so they might be cleaned too. Or they clearing may be deferred, because anyway the target would request re-negotiation on the next transaction.

- XPT_RESET_BUS - send the RESET signal to the SCSI bus

  No arguments are passed in the CCB, the only interesting argument is the SCSI bus indicated by the struct sim pointer.

  A minimalistic implementation would forget the SCSI negotiations for all the devices on the bus and return the status CAM_REQ_CMP.

  The proper implementation would in addition actually reset the SCSI bus (possible also reset the SCSI controller) and mark all the CCBs being processed, both those in the hardware queue and those being disconnected, as done with the status CAM_SCSI_BUS_RESET. Like:

  int targ, lun; struct xxx_hcb *h, *hh; struct ccb_trans_settings neg; struct cam_path *path; /* The SCSI bus reset may take a long time, in this case its completion * should be checked by interrupt or timeout. But for simplicity * we assume here that it is really fast. */ reset_scsi_bus(softc); /* drop all enqueued CCBs */ for(h = softc->first_queued_hcb; h != NULL; h = hh) { hh = h->next; free_hcb_and_ccb_done(h, h->ccb, CAM_SCSI_BUS_RESET); } /* the clean values of negotiations to report */ neg.bus_width = 8; neg.sync_period = neg.sync_offset = 0; neg.valid = (CCB_TRANS_BUS_WIDTH_VALID | CCB_TRANS_SYNC_RATE_VALID | CCB_TRANS_SYNC_OFFSET_VALID); /* drop all disconnected CCBs and clean negotiations */ for(targ=0; targ <= OUR_MAX_SUPPORTED_TARGET; targ++) { clean_negotiations(softc, targ); /* report the event if possible */ if(xpt_create_path(&path, /*periph*/NULL, cam_sim_path(sim), targ, CAM_LUN_WILDCARD) == CAM_REQ_CMP) { xpt_async(AC_TRANSFER_NEG, path, &neg); xpt_free_path(path); } for(lun=0; lun <= OUR_MAX_SUPPORTED_LUN; lun++) for(h = softc->first_discon_hcb[targ][lun]; h != NULL; h = hh) { hh=h->next; free_hcb_and_ccb_done(h, h->ccb, CAM_SCSI_BUS_RESET); } } ccb->ccb_h.status = CAM_REQ_CMP; xpt_done(ccb); /* report the event */ xpt_async(AC_BUS_RESET, softc->wpath, NULL); return;

  Implementing the SCSI bus reset as a function may be a good idea because it would be re-used by the timeout function as a last resort if the things go wrong.

- XPT_ABORT - abort the specified CCB

  The arguments are transferred in the instance “struct ccb_abort cab” of the union ccb. The only argument field in it is:

  abort_ccb - pointer to the CCB to be aborted

  If the abort is not supported just return the status CAM_UA_ABORT. This is also the easy way to minimally implement this call, return CAM_UA_ABORT in any case.

  The hard way is to implement this request honestly. First check that abort applies to a SCSI transaction:

  struct ccb *abort_ccb; abort_ccb = ccb->cab.abort_ccb; if(abort_ccb->ccb_h.func_code != XPT_SCSI_IO) { ccb->ccb_h.status = CAM_UA_ABORT; xpt_done(ccb); return; }

  Then it is necessary to find this CCB in our queue. This can be done by walking the list of all our hardware control blocks in search for one associated with this CCB:

  struct xxx_hcb *hcb, *h; hcb = NULL; /* We assume that softc->first_hcb is the head of the list of all * HCBs associated with this bus, including those enqueued for * processing, being processed by hardware and disconnected ones. */ for(h = softc->first_hcb; h != NULL; h = h->next) { if(h->ccb == abort_ccb) { hcb = h; break; } } if(hcb == NULL) { /* no such CCB in our queue */ ccb->ccb_h.status = CAM_PATH_INVALID; xpt_done(ccb); return; } hcb=found_hcb;

  Now we look at the current processing status of the HCB. It may be either sitting in the queue waiting to be sent to the SCSI bus, being transferred right now, or disconnected and waiting for the result of the command, or actually completed by hardware but not yet marked as done by software. To make sure that we do not get in any races with hardware we mark the HCB as being aborted, so that if this HCB is about to be sent to the SCSI bus the SCSI controller will see this flag and skip it.

  int hstatus; /* shown as a function, in case special action is needed to make * this flag visible to hardware */ set_hcb_flags(hcb, HCB_BEING_ABORTED); abort_again: hstatus = get_hcb_status(hcb); switch(hstatus) { case HCB_SITTING_IN_QUEUE: remove_hcb_from_hardware_queue(hcb); /* FALLTHROUGH */ case HCB_COMPLETED: /* this is an easy case */ free_hcb_and_ccb_done(hcb, abort_ccb, CAM_REQ_ABORTED); break;

  If the CCB is being transferred right now we would like to signal to the SCSI controller in some hardware-dependent way that we want to abort the current transfer. The SCSI controller would set the SCSI ATTENTION signal and when the target responds to it send an ABORT message. We also reset the timeout to make sure that the target is not sleeping forever. If the command would not get aborted in some reasonable time like 10 seconds the timeout routine would go ahead and reset the whole SCSI bus. Because the command will be aborted in some reasonable time we can just return the abort request now as successfully completed, and mark the aborted CCB as aborted (but not mark it as done yet).

  case HCB_BEING_TRANSFERRED: untimeout(xxx_timeout, (caddr_t) hcb, abort_ccb->ccb_h.timeout_ch); abort_ccb->ccb_h.timeout_ch = timeout(xxx_timeout, (caddr_t) hcb, 10 * hz); abort_ccb->ccb_h.status = CAM_REQ_ABORTED; /* ask the controller to abort that HCB, then generate * an interrupt and stop */ if(signal_hardware_to_abort_hcb_and_stop(hcb) < 0) { /* oops, we missed the race with hardware, this transaction * got off the bus before we aborted it, try again */ goto abort_again; } break;

  If the CCB is in the list of disconnected then set it up as an abort request and re-queue it at the front of hardware queue. Reset the timeout and report the abort request to be completed.

  case HCB_DISCONNECTED: untimeout(xxx_timeout, (caddr_t) hcb, abort_ccb->ccb_h.timeout_ch); abort_ccb->ccb_h.timeout_ch = timeout(xxx_timeout, (caddr_t) hcb, 10 * hz); put_abort_message_into_hcb(hcb); put_hcb_at_the_front_of_hardware_queue(hcb); break; } ccb->ccb_h.status = CAM_REQ_CMP; xpt_done(ccb); return;

  That is all for the ABORT request, although there is one more issue. Because the ABORT message cleans all the ongoing transactions on a LUN we have to mark all the other active transactions on this LUN as aborted. That should be done in the interrupt routine, after the transaction gets aborted.

  Implementing the CCB abort as a function may be quite a good idea, this function can be re-used if an I/O transaction times out. The only difference would be that the timed out transaction would return the status CAM_CMD_TIMEOUT for the timed out request. Then the case XPT_ABORT would be small, like that:

  case XPT_ABORT: struct ccb *abort_ccb; abort_ccb = ccb->cab.abort_ccb; if(abort_ccb->ccb_h.func_code != XPT_SCSI_IO) { ccb->ccb_h.status = CAM_UA_ABORT; xpt_done(ccb); return; } if(xxx_abort_ccb(abort_ccb, CAM_REQ_ABORTED) < 0) /* no such CCB in our queue */ ccb->ccb_h.status = CAM_PATH_INVALID; else ccb->ccb_h.status = CAM_REQ_CMP; xpt_done(ccb); return;

- XPT_SET_TRAN_SETTINGS - explicitly set values of SCSI transfer settings

  The arguments are transferred in the instance “struct ccb_trans_setting cts” of the union ccb:

  - valid - a bitmask showing which settings should be updated:

  - CCB_TRANS_SYNC_RATE_VALID - synchronous transfer rate

  - CCB_TRANS_SYNC_OFFSET_VALID - synchronous offset

  - CCB_TRANS_BUS_WIDTH_VALID - bus width

  - CCB_TRANS_DISC_VALID - set enable/disable disconnection

  - CCB_TRANS_TQ_VALID - set enable/disable tagged queuing

  - flags - consists of two parts, binary arguments and identification of sub-operations. The binary arguments are:

    - CCB_TRANS_DISC_ENB - enable disconnection

    - CCB_TRANS_TAG_ENB - enable tagged queuing

  - the sub-operations are:

    - CCB_TRANS_CURRENT_SETTINGS - change the current negotiations

    - CCB_TRANS_USER_SETTINGS - remember the desired user values sync_period, sync_offset - self-explanatory, if sync_offset==0 then the asynchronous mode is requested bus_width - bus width, in bits (not bytes)

  Two sets of negotiated parameters are supported, the user settings and the current settings. The user settings are not really used much in the SIM drivers, this is mostly just a piece of memory where the upper levels can store (and later recall) its ideas about the parameters. Setting the user parameters does not cause re-negotiation of the transfer rates. But when the SCSI controller does a negotiation it must never set the values higher than the user parameters, so it is essentially the top boundary.

  The current settings are, as the name says, current. Changing them means that the parameters must be re-negotiated on the next transfer. Again, these “new current settings” are not supposed to be forced on the device, just they are used as the initial step of negotiations. Also they must be limited by actual capabilities of the SCSI controller: for example, if the SCSI controller has 8-bit bus and the request asks to set 16-bit wide transfers this parameter must be silently truncated to 8-bit transfers before sending it to the device.

  One caveat is that the bus width and synchronous parameters are per target while the disconnection and tag enabling parameters are per lun.

  The recommended implementation is to keep 3 sets of negotiated (bus width and synchronous transfer) parameters:

  - user - the user set, as above

  - current - those actually in effect

  - goal - those requested by setting of the “current” parameters

  The code looks like:

  struct ccb_trans_settings *cts; int targ, lun; int flags; cts = &ccb->cts; targ = ccb_h->target_id; lun = ccb_h->target_lun; flags = cts->flags; if(flags & CCB_TRANS_USER_SETTINGS) { if(flags & CCB_TRANS_SYNC_RATE_VALID) softc->user_sync_period[targ] = cts->sync_period; if(flags & CCB_TRANS_SYNC_OFFSET_VALID) softc->user_sync_offset[targ] = cts->sync_offset; if(flags & CCB_TRANS_BUS_WIDTH_VALID) softc->user_bus_width[targ] = cts->bus_width; if(flags & CCB_TRANS_DISC_VALID) { softc->user_tflags[targ][lun] &= ~CCB_TRANS_DISC_ENB; softc->user_tflags[targ][lun] |= flags & CCB_TRANS_DISC_ENB; } if(flags & CCB_TRANS_TQ_VALID) { softc->user_tflags[targ][lun] &= ~CCB_TRANS_TQ_ENB; softc->user_tflags[targ][lun] |= flags & CCB_TRANS_TQ_ENB; } } if(flags & CCB_TRANS_CURRENT_SETTINGS) { if(flags & CCB_TRANS_SYNC_RATE_VALID) softc->goal_sync_period[targ] = max(cts->sync_period, OUR_MIN_SUPPORTED_PERIOD); if(flags & CCB_TRANS_SYNC_OFFSET_VALID) softc->goal_sync_offset[targ] = min(cts->sync_offset, OUR_MAX_SUPPORTED_OFFSET); if(flags & CCB_TRANS_BUS_WIDTH_VALID) softc->goal_bus_width[targ] = min(cts->bus_width, OUR_BUS_WIDTH); if(flags & CCB_TRANS_DISC_VALID) { softc->current_tflags[targ][lun] &= ~CCB_TRANS_DISC_ENB; softc->current_tflags[targ][lun] |= flags & CCB_TRANS_DISC_ENB; } if(flags & CCB_TRANS_TQ_VALID) { softc->current_tflags[targ][lun] &= ~CCB_TRANS_TQ_ENB; softc->current_tflags[targ][lun] |= flags & CCB_TRANS_TQ_ENB; } } ccb->ccb_h.status = CAM_REQ_CMP; xpt_done(ccb); return;

  Then when the next I/O request will be processed it will check if it has to re-negotiate, for example by calling the function target_negotiated(hcb). It can be implemented like this:

  int target_negotiated(struct xxx_hcb *hcb) { struct softc *softc = hcb->softc; int targ = hcb->targ; if( softc->current_sync_period[targ] != softc->goal_sync_period[targ] || softc->current_sync_offset[targ] != softc->goal_sync_offset[targ] || softc->current_bus_width[targ] != softc->goal_bus_width[targ] ) return 0; /* FALSE */ else return 1; /* TRUE */ }

  After the values are re-negotiated the resulting values must be assigned to both current and goal parameters, so for future I/O transactions the current and goal parameters would be the same and `target_negotiated()` would return TRUE. When the card is initialized (in `xxx_attach()`) the current negotiation values must be initialized to narrow asynchronous mode, the goal and current values must be initialized to the maximal values supported by controller.

  XPT_GET_TRAN_SETTINGS - get values of SCSI transfer settings

  This operations is the reverse of XPT_SET_TRAN_SETTINGS. Fill up the CCB instance “struct ccb_trans_setting cts” with data as requested by the flags CCB_TRANS_CURRENT_SETTINGS or CCB_TRANS_USER_SETTINGS (if both are set then the existing drivers return the current settings). Set all the bits in the valid field.

  XPT_CALC_GEOMETRY - calculate logical (BIOS) geometry of the disk

  The arguments are transferred in the instance “struct ccb_calc_geometry ccg” of the union ccb:

  - block_size - input, block (A.K.A sector) size in bytes

  - volume_size - input, volume size in bytes

  - cylinders - output, logical cylinders

  - heads - output, logical heads

  - secs_per_track - output, logical sectors per track

  If the returned geometry differs much enough from what the SCSI controller BIOS thinks and a disk on this SCSI controller is used as bootable the system may not be able to boot. The typical calculation example taken from the aic7xxx driver is:

  struct ccb_calc_geometry *ccg; u_int32_t size_mb; u_int32_t secs_per_cylinder; int extended; ccg = &ccb->ccg; size_mb = ccg->volume_size / ((1024L * 1024L) / ccg->block_size); extended = check_cards_EEPROM_for_extended_geometry(softc); if (size_mb > 1024 && extended) { ccg->heads = 255; ccg->secs_per_track = 63; } else { ccg->heads = 64; ccg->secs_per_track = 32; } secs_per_cylinder = ccg->heads * ccg->secs_per_track; ccg->cylinders = ccg->volume_size / secs_per_cylinder; ccb->ccb_h.status = CAM_REQ_CMP; xpt_done(ccb); return;

  This gives the general idea, the exact calculation depends on the quirks of the particular BIOS. If BIOS provides no way set the “extended translation” flag in EEPROM this flag should normally be assumed equal to 1. Other popular geometries are:

  128 heads, 63 sectors - Symbios controllers 16 heads, 63 sectors - old controllers

  Some system BIOSes and SCSI BIOSes fight with each other with variable success, for example a combination of Symbios 875/895 SCSI and Phoenix BIOS can give geometry 128/63 after power up and 255/63 after a hard reset or soft reboot.

- XPT_PATH_INQ - path inquiry, in other words get the SIM driver and SCSI controller (also known as HBA - Host Bus Adapter) properties

  The properties are returned in the instance “struct ccb_pathinq cpi” of the union ccb:

  - version_num - the SIM driver version number, now all drivers use 1

  - hba_inquiry - bitmask of features supported by the controller:

  - PI_MDP_ABLE - supports MDP message (something from SCSI3?)

  - PI_WIDE_32 - supports 32 bit wide SCSI

  - PI_WIDE_16 - supports 16 bit wide SCSI

  - PI_SDTR_ABLE - can negotiate synchronous transfer rate

  - PI_LINKED_CDB - supports linked commands

  - PI_TAG_ABLE - supports tagged commands

  - PI_SOFT_RST - supports soft reset alternative (hard reset and soft reset are mutually exclusive within a SCSI bus)

  - target_sprt - flags for target mode support, 0 if unsupported

  - hba_misc - miscellaneous controller features:

  - PIM_SCANHILO - bus scans from high ID to low ID

  - PIM_NOREMOVE - removable devices not included in scan

  - PIM_NOINITIATOR - initiator role not supported

  - PIM_NOBUSRESET - user has disabled initial BUS RESET

  - hba_eng_cnt - mysterious HBA engine count, something related to compression, now is always set to 0

  - vuhba_flags - vendor-unique flags, unused now

  - max_target - maximal supported target ID (7 for 8-bit bus, 15 for 16-bit bus, 127 for Fibre Channel)

  - max_lun - maximal supported LUN ID (7 for older SCSI controllers, 63 for newer ones)

  - async_flags - bitmask of installed Async handler, unused now

  - hpath_id - highest Path ID in the subsystem, unused now

  - unit_number - the controller unit number, cam_sim_unit(sim)

  - bus_id - the bus number, cam_sim_bus(sim)

  - initiator_id - the SCSI ID of the controller itself

  - base_transfer_speed - nominal transfer speed in KB/s for asynchronous narrow transfers, equals to 3300 for SCSI

  - sim_vid - SIM driver's vendor id, a zero-terminated string of maximal length SIM_IDLEN including the terminating zero

  - hba_vid - SCSI controller's vendor id, a zero-terminated string of maximal length HBA_IDLEN including the terminating zero

  - dev_name - device driver name, a zero-terminated string of maximal length DEV_IDLEN including the terminating zero, equal to cam_sim_name(sim)

  The recommended way of setting the string fields is using strncpy, like:

  strncpy(cpi->dev_name, cam_sim_name(sim), DEV_IDLEN);

  After setting the values set the status to CAM_REQ_CMP and mark the CCB as done.

Prev | Up | Next
Chapter 12. Common Access Method SCSI Controllers | Home | 12.3. Polling

This, and other documents, can be downloaded from http://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/

For questions about FreeBSD, read the documentation before contacting <questions@FreeBSD.org>.
For questions about this documentation, e-mail <doc@FreeBSD.org>.