[RFC PATCH] vring: Force use of DMA API for ARM-based systems

From: Will Deacon
Date: Tue Dec 20 2016 - 10:14:25 EST


Booting Linux on an ARM fastmodel containing an SMMU emulation results
in an unexpected I/O page fault from the legacy virtio-blk PCI device:

[ 1.211721] arm-smmu-v3 2b400000.smmu: event 0x10 received:
[ 1.211800] arm-smmu-v3 2b400000.smmu: 0x00000000fffff010
[ 1.211880] arm-smmu-v3 2b400000.smmu: 0x0000020800000000
[ 1.211959] arm-smmu-v3 2b400000.smmu: 0x00000008fa081002
[ 1.212075] arm-smmu-v3 2b400000.smmu: 0x0000000000000000
[ 1.212155] arm-smmu-v3 2b400000.smmu: event 0x10 received:
[ 1.212234] arm-smmu-v3 2b400000.smmu: 0x00000000fffff010
[ 1.212314] arm-smmu-v3 2b400000.smmu: 0x0000020800000000
[ 1.212394] arm-smmu-v3 2b400000.smmu: 0x00000008fa081000
[ 1.212471] arm-smmu-v3 2b400000.smmu: 0x0000000000000000

<system hangs failing to read partition table>

This is because the virtio-blk is behind an SMMU, so we have consequently
swizzled its DMA ops and configured the SMMU to translate accesses. This
then requires the vring code to use the DMA API to establish translations,
otherwise all transactions will result in fatal faults and termination.

Given that ARM-based systems only see an SMMU if one is really present
(the topology is all described by firmware tables such as device-tree or
IORT), then we can safely use the DMA API for all virtio devices.

Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Michael S. Tsirkin <mst@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Will Deacon <will.deacon@xxxxxxx>
---
drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c | 4 ++++
1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)

diff --git a/drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c b/drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c
index ed9c9eeedfe5..06b91e29d1b7 100644
--- a/drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c
+++ b/drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c
@@ -159,6 +159,10 @@ static bool vring_use_dma_api(struct virtio_device *vdev)
if (xen_domain())
return true;

+ /* On ARM-based machines, the DMA ops will do the right thing */
+ if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_ARM) || IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_ARM64))
+ return true;
+
return false;
}

--
2.1.4