Re: Creating a new platform_bus inside a spi_driver

[Grant Likely]

On Thu, 06 Nov 2014 18:02:52 -0200
, DATACOM - Ã?rico Nunes
 <erico.nunes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
 wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> In our board we have a FPGA whose programmable logic communicates with the main
> processor via SPI. Inside the programmable logic we also have a range of
> registers (writable via SPI commands) which implement functionality of several
> distinct "devices".
> 
> Our approach to implement a driver framework for these devices was to have a
> platform_bus embedded in a spi_device. This device tree source draft
> illustrates the proposal:
> 
> {
>     spi-master@2000 {
>         #address-cells = <1>;
>         #size-cells = <0>;
>         compatible = "cpu-spi-master";
>         reg = <0x2000 0x2000>;
> 
>         fpga@1 {
>             #address-cells = <1>;
>             #size-cells = <1>;
>             compatible = "fpga-spi";
>             reg = <1>;
>             spi-max-frequency = <25000000>;
> 
>             fpga-device1@200 {
>                 compatible = "fpga-device1-driver";
>                 reg = <0x200 0x300>;
>             };
> 
>             fpga-device2@500 {
>                 compatible = "fpga-device2-driver";
>                 reg = <0x500 0x100>;
>             };
> 
>             fpga-device3@600 {
>                 compatible = "fpga-device3-driver";
>                 reg = <0x600 0x200>;
>             };
>         };
>     };
> }
> 
> The idea is that "fpga-spi" is a spi_driver which instantiates all of the
> "fpga-deviceN" as platform_devices, through the use of
> of_platform_populate(dev->of_node, NULL, NULL, dev).
> 
> The visible problem we're facing with this approach is that, as the internal
> platform_devices have a "reg" property, of_platform_populate() eventually
> triggers an address translation which is apparently trying to translate the
> addresses of the internal platform_bus to addresses of the processor memory
> map.
> This translation is however not part of our intention, as we intend to have an
> internal bus with its own memory map.
> This fails when __of_translate_address() reaches the spi-master boundary
> because (as it seems to make sense) it isn't possible to translate them past
> that.
> A KERN_ERR rated message like
> "prom_parse: Bad cell count for /soc@f0000000/spi@2000/fpga@1"
> is thrown by __of_translate_address() and later it is not possible to obtain
> the "reg" address with platform_get_resource().
> 
> On this scenario, we have a few questions and, depending on the outcome of
> these, possibly a patch.
> 
> 1. Is it possible to have an internal platform_bus with a different memory map
> as we intended? Or are platform_busses and platform_devices supposed to always
> be mapped on the processor memory map?
> 
> 2. If platform_bus and platform_device were actually designed to always be
> mappable to the processor memory map, what would be a different approach to
> this problem?  One alternative considered was to define a new "fpga_bus" and
> "fpga_device" but that seemed as an overkill approach to the problem.
> 
> 3. By searching for the ocurrences of of_platform_populate(), some uses which
> look similar to our approach were found, in the following drivers:
> drivers/mfd/smsc-ece1099.c
> drivers/mfd/palmas.c
> These have an i2c_driver which calls of_platform_populate() just like we
> attempted.  Won't they run into a similar problem, if any of the children
> platform_devices provide a "reg" property?
> 
> 4. By applying the patch attached at the end of this mail, things start to work
> as we intended. Basically instead of returning an error if we reach an
> untranslatable boundary, we return the resulting address so far. This is
> assuming that, for this case, we want an internal memory map for this device.
> Is this patch/assumption breaking any design decisions regarding the platform
> subsystem? It is of course not a widely tested patch, but could we be facing a
> bug which needs a fix like the one presented?
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> 
> Erico
> 
> 
> 
> [PATCH] of/address: return partial translation when crossing
>  untranslatable boundary
> 
> Signed-off-by: erico.nunes <erico.nunes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  drivers/of/address.c | 3 ++-
>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/of/address.c b/drivers/of/address.c
> index afdb782..ab56d31 100644
> --- a/drivers/of/address.c
> +++ b/drivers/of/address.c
> @@ -572,8 +572,9 @@ static u64 __of_translate_address(struct device_node *dev,
>          pbus = of_match_bus(parent);
>          pbus->count_cells(dev, &pna, &pns);
>          if (!OF_CHECK_COUNTS(pna, pns)) {
> -            printk(KERN_ERR "prom_parse: Bad cell count for %s\n",
> +            pr_debug("OF: prom_parse: Bad cell count for %s\n",
>                     of_node_full_name(dev));
> +            result = of_read_number(addr, na);

This will cause breakage elsewhere. The __of_translate_address()
function is intended to fail when translation is impossible. You would
need a different variant of the function, or different mode of calling
it which allows partial translation. Actually, what would be better is
to pass in an end-point for translation. You want the caller to be
explicit about where it expects the translation to stop, and still fail
if translation doesn't occur at that point. That gives some assurance
that the driver won't end up with bogus translations.

g.

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