Re: [RFC: DMA_PMD 00/22] DMA_PMD: PMD_SIZE-backed IO buffer pools

[Jason Gunthorpe]

On Fri, Oct 23, 2026 at 04:30:25PM +0200, Luigi Rizzo wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 23, 2026 at 4:01 PM Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, Oct 22, 2026 at 11:51:40PM +0200, Luigi Rizzo wrote:
> > > On Thu, Oct 22, 2026 at 10:12 PM Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> ...
> > > > Can someone explain what outside netdev would use this? And why you
> > > > couldn't do this in the netdev page pool?
> > >
> > > I can try.
> > >
> > > Regarding users, the next target is disks (not included in this series)
> >
> > Disks don't use a memory pool, they do IO to folios allocated by the
> > page cache.
> 
> I know. As I said I have a separate patch to cover those IO buffers
> 
>  block/bio.c                  |  21 +++++
>  block/blk-mq-dma.c           |   4 +-
>  drivers/iommu/dma-pmd-node.c |   3 +-
>  drivers/iommu/dma-pmd-pool.c |  14 ++-
>  drivers/iommu/dma-pmd-priv.h |   7 +-
>  drivers/iommu/dma-pmd-user.c | 390
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------
>  include/linux/dma-pmd.h      |  53 +++++++++++
>  mm/filemap.c                 |  27 +++++-
>  mm/page-writeback.c          |  13 +++
>  mm/readahead.c               |   9 +-
> 
> 
> Disk I/O is still potentially affected by the same problems
> (cost if io mapping/unmapping, iotlb thrashing, bounce buffers
> in confidential computing...)

The disk folks already have a proposal to address all of this using
io_uring and preallocated buffers. I really doubt yet another version
is going to be interesting there.

> Anyways, reading your next comments, are you suggesting that all
> these functionalities should be implemented as pagepool extensions?
> (2MB mappings and iommu backing, proper allocator of fragments out of larger
> pages, device-less pagepools, multi-domain mappings, pagepool
> as memory provider for skb heads, pagepool as memory provider for descriptor
> rings ?)

netdev shouldn't be touching iommu, it can get a 2M page and map it
using the normal DMA API. AFAIK there is not such a big reason to need
any of these layering violations. They just make it easier on page
pool..

"multi-domain mappings" is that just for page pool because it can't
easially keep track of IOVAs for all the devices mapping the same PMD?
I admit hacking in a special IOVA range so every netdev has the same
IOVA is certainly a creative way to ignore all layering and solve
it. :\

But you could just figure out a way to keep track of the per-device
per-PMD iova mapping..

That said, if you came with some much narrower series to request some
kind of 'globally shared iova' during dma allocation that might be
something dma-api folks could agree with.. It seems like the only
actual DMA API request here anyhow?

That's a bit tricky since it is impossible as a general concept, but
maybe you can come up with some way to narrow it..

I'm still not convinced this is even right for netdev, especially
compared to what Dragos has been working on. The CC stuff seems
actively dangerous. Unconditionally always using CC shared memory for
skbs is completely security wrong. What I have traffic flowing inside
my VM between containers or something? Does this end up putting those
skbs in shared memory even if they never hit a physical NIC?  Same
with a TDISP capable NIC, does this unconditionally degrade its
security?

Jason