The PCI Express Advanced Error Reporting Driver Guide HOWTO
  		T. Long Nguyen	<tom.l.nguyen@intel.com>
  		Yanmin Zhang	<yanmin.zhang@intel.com>
  				07/29/2006
  
  
  1. Overview
  
  1.1 About this guide
  
  This guide describes the basics of the PCI Express Advanced Error
  Reporting (AER) driver and provides information on how to use it, as
  well as how to enable the drivers of endpoint devices to conform with
  PCI Express AER driver.

  1.2 Copyright (C) Intel Corporation 2006.

  
  1.3 What is the PCI Express AER Driver?
  
  PCI Express error signaling can occur on the PCI Express link itself
  or on behalf of transactions initiated on the link. PCI Express
  defines two error reporting paradigms: the baseline capability and
  the Advanced Error Reporting capability. The baseline capability is
  required of all PCI Express components providing a minimum defined
  set of error reporting requirements. Advanced Error Reporting
  capability is implemented with a PCI Express advanced error reporting
  extended capability structure providing more robust error reporting.
  
  The PCI Express AER driver provides the infrastructure to support PCI
  Express Advanced Error Reporting capability. The PCI Express AER
  driver provides three basic functions:
  
  -	Gathers the comprehensive error information if errors occurred.
  -	Reports error to the users.
  -	Performs error recovery actions.
  
  AER driver only attaches root ports which support PCI-Express AER
  capability.
  
  
  2. User Guide
  
  2.1 Include the PCI Express AER Root Driver into the Linux Kernel
  
  The PCI Express AER Root driver is a Root Port service driver attached
  to the PCI Express Port Bus driver. If a user wants to use it, the driver
  has to be compiled. Option CONFIG_PCIEAER supports this capability. It
  depends on CONFIG_PCIEPORTBUS, so pls. set CONFIG_PCIEPORTBUS=y and
  CONFIG_PCIEAER = y.
  
  2.2 Load PCI Express AER Root Driver

  
  Some systems have AER support in firmware. Enabling Linux AER support at
  the same time the firmware handles AER may result in unpredictable
  behavior. Therefore, Linux does not handle AER events unless the firmware
  grants AER control to the OS via the ACPI _OSC method. See the PCI FW 3.0
  Specification for details regarding _OSC usage.

  
  2.3 AER error output

  
  When a PCIe AER error is captured, an error message will be output to
  console. If it's a correctable error, it is output as a warning.

  Otherwise, it is printed as an error. So users could choose different
  log level to filter out correctable error messages.

  Below shows an example:
  0000:50:00.0: PCIe Bus Error: severity=Uncorrected (Fatal), type=Transaction Layer, id=0500(Requester ID)
  0000:50:00.0:   device [8086:0329] error status/mask=00100000/00000000
  0000:50:00.0:    [20] Unsupported Request    (First)
  0000:50:00.0:   TLP Header: 04000001 00200a03 05010000 00050100

  
  In the example, 'Requester ID' means the ID of the device who sends
  the error message to root port. Pls. refer to pci express specs for
  other fields.
  
  
  3. Developer Guide
  
  To enable AER aware support requires a software driver to configure
  the AER capability structure within its device and to provide callbacks.
  
  To support AER better, developers need understand how AER does work
  firstly.
  
  PCI Express errors are classified into two types: correctable errors
  and uncorrectable errors. This classification is based on the impacts
  of those errors, which may result in degraded performance or function
  failure.
  
  Correctable errors pose no impacts on the functionality of the
  interface. The PCI Express protocol can recover without any software
  intervention or any loss of data. These errors are detected and
  corrected by hardware. Unlike correctable errors, uncorrectable
  errors impact functionality of the interface. Uncorrectable errors
  can cause a particular transaction or a particular PCI Express link
  to be unreliable. Depending on those error conditions, uncorrectable
  errors are further classified into non-fatal errors and fatal errors.
  Non-fatal errors cause the particular transaction to be unreliable,
  but the PCI Express link itself is fully functional. Fatal errors, on
  the other hand, cause the link to be unreliable.
  
  When AER is enabled, a PCI Express device will automatically send an

  error message to the PCIe root port above it when the device captures

  an error. The Root Port, upon receiving an error reporting message,
  internally processes and logs the error message in its PCI Express
  capability structure. Error information being logged includes storing
  the error reporting agent's requestor ID into the Error Source
  Identification Registers and setting the error bits of the Root Error
  Status Register accordingly. If AER error reporting is enabled in Root
  Error Command Register, the Root Port generates an interrupt if an
  error is detected.
  
  Note that the errors as described above are related to the PCI Express
  hierarchy and links. These errors do not include any device specific
  errors because device specific errors will still get sent directly to
  the device driver.
  
  3.1 Configure the AER capability structure
  
  AER aware drivers of PCI Express component need change the device
  control registers to enable AER. They also could change AER registers,
  including mask and severity registers. Helper function
  pci_enable_pcie_error_reporting could be used to enable AER. See
  section 3.3.
  
  3.2. Provide callbacks
  
  3.2.1 callback reset_link to reset pci express link
  
  This callback is used to reset the pci express physical link when a
  fatal error happens. The root port aer service driver provides a
  default reset_link function, but different upstream ports might
  have different specifications to reset pci express link, so all
  upstream ports should provide their own reset_link functions.
  
  In struct pcie_port_service_driver, a new pointer, reset_link, is
  added.
  
  pci_ers_result_t (*reset_link) (struct pci_dev *dev);
  
  Section 3.2.2.2 provides more detailed info on when to call
  reset_link.
  
  3.2.2 PCI error-recovery callbacks
  
  The PCI Express AER Root driver uses error callbacks to coordinate
  with downstream device drivers associated with a hierarchy in question
  when performing error recovery actions.
  
  Data struct pci_driver has a pointer, err_handler, to point to
  pci_error_handlers who consists of a couple of callback function
  pointers. AER driver follows the rules defined in
  pci-error-recovery.txt except pci express specific parts (e.g.
  reset_link). Pls. refer to pci-error-recovery.txt for detailed
  definitions of the callbacks.
  
  Below sections specify when to call the error callback functions.
  
  3.2.2.1 Correctable errors
  
  Correctable errors pose no impacts on the functionality of
  the interface. The PCI Express protocol can recover without any
  software intervention or any loss of data. These errors do not
  require any recovery actions. The AER driver clears the device's
  correctable error status register accordingly and logs these errors.
  
  3.2.2.2 Non-correctable (non-fatal and fatal) errors
  
  If an error message indicates a non-fatal error, performing link reset
  at upstream is not required. The AER driver calls error_detected(dev,
  pci_channel_io_normal) to all drivers associated within a hierarchy in
  question. for example,
  EndPoint<==>DownstreamPort B<==>UpstreamPort A<==>RootPort.
  If Upstream port A captures an AER error, the hierarchy consists of
  Downstream port B and EndPoint.
  
  A driver may return PCI_ERS_RESULT_CAN_RECOVER,
  PCI_ERS_RESULT_DISCONNECT, or PCI_ERS_RESULT_NEED_RESET, depending on
  whether it can recover or the AER driver calls mmio_enabled as next.
  
  If an error message indicates a fatal error, kernel will broadcast
  error_detected(dev, pci_channel_io_frozen) to all drivers within
  a hierarchy in question. Then, performing link reset at upstream is
  necessary. As different kinds of devices might use different approaches
  to reset link, AER port service driver is required to provide the
  function to reset link. Firstly, kernel looks for if the upstream
  component has an aer driver. If it has, kernel uses the reset_link
  callback of the aer driver. If the upstream component has no aer driver

  and the port is downstream port, we will perform a hot reset as the
  default by setting the Secondary Bus Reset bit of the Bridge Control
  register associated with the downstream port. As for upstream ports,

  they should provide their own aer service drivers with reset_link
  function. If error_detected returns PCI_ERS_RESULT_CAN_RECOVER and
  reset_link returns PCI_ERS_RESULT_RECOVERED, the error handling goes
  to mmio_enabled.
  
  3.3 helper functions

  3.3.1 int pci_enable_pcie_error_reporting(struct pci_dev *dev);

  pci_enable_pcie_error_reporting enables the device to send error
  messages to root port when an error is detected. Note that devices
  don't enable the error reporting by default, so device drivers need
  call this function to enable it.

  3.3.2 int pci_disable_pcie_error_reporting(struct pci_dev *dev);

  pci_disable_pcie_error_reporting disables the device to send error
  messages to root port when an error is detected.

  3.3.3 int pci_cleanup_aer_uncorrect_error_status(struct pci_dev *dev);

  pci_cleanup_aer_uncorrect_error_status cleanups the uncorrectable
  error status register.
  
  3.4 Frequent Asked Questions
  
  Q: What happens if a PCI Express device driver does not provide an
  error recovery handler (pci_driver->err_handler is equal to NULL)?
  
  A: The devices attached with the driver won't be recovered. If the
  error is fatal, kernel will print out warning messages. Please refer
  to section 3 for more information.
  
  Q: What happens if an upstream port service driver does not provide
  callback reset_link?
  
  A: Fatal error recovery will fail if the errors are reported by the
  upstream ports who are attached by the service driver.
  
  Q: How does this infrastructure deal with driver that is not PCI
  Express aware?
  
  A: This infrastructure calls the error callback functions of the
  driver when an error happens. But if the driver is not aware of
  PCI Express, the device might not report its own errors to root
  port.
  
  Q: What modifications will that driver need to make it compatible
  with the PCI Express AER Root driver?
  
  A: It could call the helper functions to enable AER in devices and
  cleanup uncorrectable status register. Pls. refer to section 3.3.

  
  4. Software error injection

  Debugging PCIe AER error recovery code is quite difficult because it

  is hard to trigger real hardware errors. Software based error

  injection can be used to fake various kinds of PCIe errors.

  First you should enable PCIe AER software error injection in kernel

  configuration, that is, following item should be in your .config.
  
  CONFIG_PCIEAER_INJECT=y or CONFIG_PCIEAER_INJECT=m
  
  After reboot with new kernel or insert the module, a device file named
  /dev/aer_inject should be created.
  
  Then, you need a user space tool named aer-inject, which can be gotten
  from:

      https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/gong.chen/aer-inject.git/

  
  More information about aer-inject can be found in the document comes
  with its source code.