Re: [EXTERNAL] [PATCH 00/13] nvme-fc: FPIN link integrity handling

On Thu, Aug 13, 2026 at 12:54 AM Nilesh Javali <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> From: Jesse Taube <[email protected]>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2026 11:43 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Cc: Jonathan Corbet <[email protected]>; Shuah Khan <[email protected]>; Keith Busch <[email protected]>; Jens Axboe <[email protected]>; Christoph Hellwig <[email protected]>; Sagi Grimberg <[email protected]>; Justin Tee <[email protected]>; Naresh Gottumukkala <[email protected]>; Paul Ely <[email protected]>; Chaitanya Kulkarni <[email protected]>; James E.J. Bottomley <[email protected]>; Martin K. Petersen <[email protected]>; Nilesh Javali <[email protected]>; [email protected]; Hannes Reinecke <[email protected]>; Jesse Taube <[email protected]>; Gustavo A. R. Silva <[email protected]>; John Meneghini <[email protected]>; Bryan Gurney <[email protected]>; Chris Leech <[email protected]>; Ewan D . Milne <[email protected]>; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
> Subject: [EXTERNAL] [PATCH 00/13] nvme-fc: FPIN link integrity handling
>
> FPIN LI (link integrity) messages are received when the attached fabric detects hardware errors. In response to these messages I/O should be directed away from the affected ports, and only used as a last resort. This patch adds a new controller
> ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart
> Prioritize security for external emails:
> Confirm sender and content safety before clicking links or opening attachments
>   https://us-phishalarm-ewt.proofpoint.com/EWT/v1/CRVmXkqW!te3Z1f8UYnTa1E-duf06bvZlnS-1FrR2Jkcx8WQcjCWqN2c_NKqyKXnJoJcD4hWMKkUnua_-glfm3m67hWRah9Kf0UTKp-APm3w$  ‌
>
>
> ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerEnd
> FPIN LI (link integrity) messages are received when the attached fabric
> detects hardware errors. In response to these messages I/O should be
> directed away from the affected ports, and only used as a last resort.
> This patch adds a new controller flag 'NVME_CTRL_MARGINAL' which will be
> checked during multipath path selection, causing the path to be skipped
> when checking for paths. If no other paths are available the 'marginal'
> paths are considered for path selection.
>
> The testing for this patch set was performed by Bryan Gurney, using the
> process outlined by John Meneghini's presentation at LSFMM 2024, where
> the fibre channel switch sends an FPIN notification on a specific switch
> port, and the following is checked on the initiator:
>
> 1. The controllers corresponding to the paths on the port that has
> received the notification are showing a set NVME_CTRL_MARGINAL flag.
>
>    \
>     +- nvme4 fc traddr=c,host_traddr=e live optimized
>     +- nvme5 fc traddr=8,host_traddr=e live non-optimized
>     +- nvme8 fc traddr=e,host_traddr=f marginal optimized
>     +- nvme9 fc traddr=a,host_traddr=f marginal non-optimized
>
> 2. The I/O statistics of the test namespace show no I/O activity on the
> controllers with NVME_CTRL_MARGINAL set.
>
>    Device             tps    MB_read/s    MB_wrtn/s    MB_dscd/s
>    nvme4c4n1         0.00         0.00         0.00         0.00
>    nvme4c5n1     25001.00         0.00        97.66         0.00
>    nvme4c9n1     25000.00         0.00        97.66         0.00
>    nvme4n1       50011.00         0.00       195.36         0.00
>
>
>    Device             tps    MB_read/s    MB_wrtn/s    MB_dscd/s
>    nvme4c4n1         0.00         0.00         0.00         0.00
>    nvme4c5n1     48360.00         0.00       188.91         0.00
>    nvme4c9n1      1642.00         0.00         6.41         0.00
>    nvme4n1       49981.00         0.00       195.24         0.00
>
>
>    Device             tps    MB_read/s    MB_wrtn/s    MB_dscd/s
>    nvme4c4n1         0.00         0.00         0.00         0.00
>    nvme4c5n1     50001.00         0.00       195.32         0.00
>    nvme4c9n1         0.00         0.00         0.00         0.00
>    nvme4n1       50016.00         0.00       195.38         0.00
>
> Link: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__people.redhat.com_jmeneghi_LSFMM-5F2024_LSFMM-5F2024-5FNVMe-5FCancel-5Fand-5FFPIN.pdf&d=DwIDAg&c=nKjWec2b6R0mOyPaz7xtfQ&r=7My57sfPbDDcMFJyBD6G2keJbhsQZV7WIf8SjB-450c&m=ViZhyiiF6nkaVXOE1PpaKWe2JBe94gTGHA24wKzPP99uuwXoNoSYqcE55NQRqt6_&s=0jhQeJW2swbeXGSnNtXSHqXkNX1eVjXmU7QSm6m2IpU&e=
>
> Testing has been performed by sending all FPIN LI ELS messages from the
> switch to the Host and verifying the proper nvme multi-pathing behavior
> is effected with each of the eight different FPIN link integrity events.
> Results were verified with iostat and with the nvme list-subsys command.
>
> These tests were run with all scenarios including where there were only
> non-optimized paths available, and where all paths were
> marginal/degraded. All multi-path io-policies were tested including:
> numa, round-robin and queue-depth. When all paths on the host are
> marginal/degraded, I/O continues on the optimized path that was most
> recently non-marginal.  If both of the optimized paths are down, I/O
> properly continues on one of the marginal/degraded non-optimized paths.
>
> Testing has been complete with both Broadcom (lpfc) and Marvell (qla2xx)
> 32GB HBAs.  Both HBAs successfully complete all tests.
>
> For a complete description of the tests that were run, please see
> bugzilla 220329.
>
> To test the path handeling use:
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__github.com_linux-2Dblktests_blktests_pull_264&d=DwIDAg&c=nKjWec2b6R0mOyPaz7xtfQ&r=7My57sfPbDDcMFJyBD6G2keJbhsQZV7WIf8SjB-450c&m=ViZhyiiF6nkaVXOE1PpaKWe2JBe94gTGHA24wKzPP99uuwXoNoSYqcE55NQRqt6_&s=XKJyyaOO9_UGG6uH5fv88U7bAke7X9H5Xz0qa39qubs&e=
> or
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__lore.kernel.org_linux-2Dnvme_20260812174503.3705830-2D1-2Djtaubepe-40redhat.com_&d=DwIDAg&c=nKjWec2b6R0mOyPaz7xtfQ&r=7My57sfPbDDcMFJyBD6G2keJbhsQZV7WIf8SjB-450c&m=ViZhyiiF6nkaVXOE1PpaKWe2JBe94gTGHA24wKzPP99uuwXoNoSYqcE55NQRqt6_&s=qPfemamvpsdH9yAG-9CRAILRyvMrzEaa_xjIaJTo1Ds&e=
>
> To test the full set including FPIN decoding use:
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__github.com_johnmeneghini_fpin-5Fli-5Ftests&d=DwIDAg&c=nKjWec2b6R0mOyPaz7xtfQ&r=7My57sfPbDDcMFJyBD6G2keJbhsQZV7WIf8SjB-450c&m=ViZhyiiF6nkaVXOE1PpaKWe2JBe94gTGHA24wKzPP99uuwXoNoSYqcE55NQRqt6_&s=SzJUICtyPkmr7xYyCu6_gZb5itPn8MZRQm4z0Zoewak&e=
>
> Closes: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__bugzilla.kernel.org_show-5Fbug.cgi-3Fid-3D220329&d=DwIDAg&c=nKjWec2b6R0mOyPaz7xtfQ&r=7My57sfPbDDcMFJyBD6G2keJbhsQZV7WIf8SjB-450c&m=ViZhyiiF6nkaVXOE1PpaKWe2JBe94gTGHA24wKzPP99uuwXoNoSYqcE55NQRqt6_&s=Ybu1spaO4qBWAVWu7hq8KHIP73xHRmGPfJCrZVoqacY&e=
>
> New refactored implementation enables administrators to manually control
> port marginal states via sysfs. For example:
>
> # Set remote port to marginal state
> echo "Marginal" > /sys/class/fc_remote_ports/rport-4:0-1/port_state
>
> # Clear marginal state (set to online)
> echo "Online" > /sys/class/fc_remote_ports/rport-4:0-1/port_state
>
> Changes to the original submission:
> - Changed flag name to 'marginal'
> - Do not block marginal path; influence path selection instead
>   to de-prioritize marginal paths
>
> Changes to v2:
> - Split off driver-specific modifications
> - Introduce 'union fc_tlv_desc' to avoid casts
>
> Changes to v3:
> - Include reviews from Justin Tee
> - Split marginal path handling patch
>
> Changes to v4:
> - Change 'u8' to '__u8' on fc_tlv_desc to fix a failure to build
> - Print 'marginal' instead of 'live' in the state of controllers
>   when they are marginal
>
> Changes to v5:
> - Minor spelling corrections to patch descriptions
>
> Changes to v6:
> - No code changes; added note about additional testing
>
> Changes to v7:
> - Split nvme core marginal flag addition into its own patch
> - Add patch for queue_depth marginal path support
>
> Changes to v8:
> - Rebased patch series to nvme-6.17.
> - Added patch from Gustavo Silva, "scsi: qla2xxx: Fix memcpy field-spanning
>   write issue", which resolves the field-spanning write issue
> - We decided to leave the "marginal" state as is, because the transport
>   driver uses the term "marginal".
>
> Changes to v9:
> - Rebased patch series to nvme-6.18.
> - Refactor and fix a patch from Gustavo Silva, "scsi: qla2xxx: Fix 2 memcpy
>   field-spanning write issue", which resolves the field-spanning write
>   issue.
>   This new version of Gustavo's patch fixes a bug found in testing.
>
> [NJ:] I could not find this qla2xxx fix in this series. Am I missing something.
> This fix is certainly required to avoid few call traces reported, as discussed here,
> https://lore.kernel.org/linux-nvme/[email protected]/#t

You fix:
Commit 7db93e3c580d ("scsi: qla2xxx: Enhance purex_entry handling for
29xx series")
fixes the issue.

I forgot to mention it in the change log for V11. i will include it in
the change log for V12.

Thanks,
Jesse Taube

>
> Thanks,
> Nilesh
>