[PATCH v3 0/2] nvme-fabrics: short-circuit connect retries

[Hannes Reinecke]

On 3/7/24 13:14, Sagi Grimberg wrote:
> 
> 
> On 07/03/2024 13:45, Hannes Reinecke wrote:
>> On 3/7/24 12:30, Sagi Grimberg wrote:
>>>
[ .. ]
>>>
>>> Where is this retried today, I don't see where connect failure is 
>>> retried, outside of a periodic reconnect.
>>> Maybe I'm missing where what is the actual failure here.
>>
>> static void nvme_tcp_reconnect_ctrl_work(struct work_struct *work)
>> {
>>         struct nvme_tcp_ctrl *tcp_ctrl =
>>                         container_of(to_delayed_work(work),
>>                         struct nvme_tcp_ctrl, connect_work);
>>         struct nvme_ctrl *ctrl = &tcp_ctrl->ctrl;
>>
>>         ++ctrl->nr_reconnects;
>>
>>         if (nvme_tcp_setup_ctrl(ctrl, false))
>>                 goto requeue;
>>
>>         dev_info(ctrl->device, "Successfully reconnected (%d attempt)\n",
>>                         ctrl->nr_reconnects);
>>
>>         ctrl->nr_reconnects = 0;
>>
>>         return;
>>
>> requeue:
>>         dev_info(ctrl->device, "Failed reconnect attempt %d\n",
>>
>> and nvme_tcp_setup_ctrl() returns either a negative errno or an NVMe 
>> status code (which might include the DNR bit).
> 
> I thought this is about the initialization. yes today we ignore the 
> status in re-connection assuming that whatever
> happened, may (or may not) resolve itself. The basis for this assumption 
> is that if we managed to connect the first
> time there is no reason to assume that connecting again should fail 
> persistently.
> 
And that is another issue where I'm not really comfortable with.
While it would make sense to have the connect functionality to be
one-shot, and let userspace retry if needed, the problem is that we
don't have a means of transporting that information to userspace.
The only thing which we can transport is an error number, which
could be anything and mean anything.
If we had a defined way stating: 'This is a retryable, retry with the 
same options.' vs 'This is retryable error, retry with modified 
options.' vs 'This a non-retryable error, don't bother.' I'd be
fine with delegating retries to userspace.
But currently we don't.

> If there is a consensus that we should not assume it, its a valid 
> argument. I didn't see where this happens with respect
> to authentication though.

nvmf_connect_admin_queue():

             /* Authentication required */
             ret = nvme_auth_negotiate(ctrl, 0);
             if (ret) {
                     dev_warn(ctrl->device,
                              "qid 0: authentication setup failed\n");
                     ret = NVME_SC_AUTH_REQUIRED;
                     goto out_free_data;
             }
             ret = nvme_auth_wait(ctrl, 0);
             if (ret)
                     dev_warn(ctrl->device,
                              "qid 0: authentication failed\n");
             else
                     dev_info(ctrl->device,
                              "qid 0: authenticated\n");

The first call to 'nvme_auth_negotiate()' is just for setting up
the negotiation context and start the protocol. So if we get
an error here it's pretty much non-retryable as it's completely
controlled by the fabrics options.
nvme_auth_wait(), OTOH, contains the actual result from the negotiation,
so there we might or might not retry, depending on the value of 'ret'.

Cheers,

Hannes