Re: [PATCH v6 2/2] mtd: rawnand: meson: add support for Amlogic NAND flash controller

[Boris Brezillon]

+Wolfram to give some inputs on the DMA issue.

On Mon, 12 Nov 2018 17:13:51 +0100
Miquel Raynal <miquel.raynal@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> Boris Brezillon <boris.brezillon@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote on Tue, 6 Nov 2018
> 11:22:06 +0100:
> 
> > On Tue, 6 Nov 2018 18:00:37 +0800
> > Liang Yang <liang.yang@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >   
> > > On 2018/11/6 17:28, Boris Brezillon wrote:    
> > > > On Tue, 6 Nov 2018 17:08:00 +0800
> > > > Liang Yang <liang.yang@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > >       
> > > >> On 2018/11/5 23:53, Boris Brezillon wrote:      
> > > >>> On Fri, 2 Nov 2018 00:42:21 +0800
> > > >>> Jianxin Pan <jianxin.pan@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > >>>          
> > > >>>> +
> > > >>>> +static inline u8 meson_nfc_read_byte(struct mtd_info *mtd)
> > > >>>> +{
> > > >>>> +	struct nand_chip *nand = mtd_to_nand(mtd);
> > > >>>> +	struct meson_nfc *nfc = nand_get_controller_data(nand);
> > > >>>> +	u32 cmd;
> > > >>>> +
> > > >>>> +	cmd = nfc->param.chip_select | NFC_CMD_DRD | 0;
> > > >>>> +	writel(cmd, nfc->reg_base + NFC_REG_CMD);
> > > >>>> +
> > > >>>> +	meson_nfc_drain_cmd(nfc);      
> > > >>>
> > > >>> You probably don't want to drain the FIFO every time you read a byte on
> > > >>> the bus, and I guess the INPUT FIFO is at least as big as the CMD
> > > >>> FIFO, right? If that's the case, you should queue as much DRD cmd as
> > > >>> possible and only sync when the user explicitly requests it or when
> > > >>> the INPUT/READ FIFO is full.
> > > >>>          
> > > >> Register 'NFC_REG_BUF' can holds only 4 bytes, also DRD sends only one
> > > >> nand cycle to read one byte and covers the 1st byte every time reading.
> > > >> i think nfc controller is faster than nand cycle, but really it is not
> > > >> high efficiency when reading so many bytes once.
> > > >> Or use dma command here like read_page and read_page_raw.      
> > > > 
> > > > Yep, that's also an alternative, though you'll have to make sure the
> > > > buffer passed through the nand_op_inst is DMA-safe, and use a bounce
> > > > buffer when that's not the case.
> > > >       
> > > ok, i will try dma here.    
> > 
> > We should probably expose the bounce buf handling as generic helpers at
> > the rawnand level:
> > 
> > void *nand_op_get_dma_safe_input_buf(struct nand_op_instr *instr)
> > {
> > 	void *buf;
> > 
> > 	if (WARN_ON(instr->type != NAND_OP_DATA_IN_INSTR))
> > 		return NULL;
> > 
> > 	if (virt_addr_valid(instr->data.in) &&
> > 	    !object_is_on_stack(instr->data.buf.in))
> > 		return instr->data.buf.in;
> > 
> > 	return kzalloc(instr->data.len, GFP_KERNEL);
> > }
> > 
> > void nand_op_put_dma_safe_input_buf(struct nand_op_instr *instr,
> > 				    void *buf)
> > {
> > 	if (WARN_ON(instr->type != NAND_OP_DATA_IN_INSTR) ||
> > 	    WARN_ON(!buf))
> > 		return;
> > 
> > 	if (buf == instr->data.buf.in)
> > 		return;
> > 
> > 	memcpy(instr->data.buf.in, buf, instr->data.len);
> > 	kfree(buf);
> > }
> > 
> > const void *nand_op_get_dma_safe_output_buf(struct nand_op_instr *instr)
> > {
> > 	void *buf;
> > 
> > 	if (WARN_ON(instr->type != NAND_OP_DATA_OUT_INSTR))
> > 		return NULL;
> > 
> > 	if (virt_addr_valid(instr->data.out) &&
> > 	    !object_is_on_stack(instr->data.buf.out))
> > 		return instr->data.buf.out;
> > 
> > 	return kmemdup(instr->data.buf.out, GFP_KERNEL);
> > }
> > 
> > void nand_op_put_dma_safe_output_buf(struct nand_op_instr *instr,
> > 				    void *buf)
> > {
> > 	if (WARN_ON(instr->type != NAND_OP_DATA_OUT_INSTR) ||
> > 	    WARN_ON(!buf))
> > 		return;
> > 
> > 	if (buf != instr->data.buf.out)
> > 		kfree(buf);
> > }  
> 
> Not that I am against such function, but maybe they should come with
> comments stating that there is no reliable way to find if a buffer is
> DMA-able at runtime and these are just sanity checks (ie. required, but
> probably not enough).

It's not 100% reliable, but it should cover most cases. Note that the
NAND framework already uses virt_addr_valid() to decide when to use its
internal bounce buffer, so this should be fixed too if we want a fully
reliable solution.

> This is my understanding of Wolfram's recent talk
> at ELCE [1].

Yes, you're right, but the NAND framework does not provide any guarantee
on the buf passed to ->exec_op() simply because the MTD layer does not
provide such a guarantee. Reworking that to match how the i2c framework
handles it is possible (with a flag set when the buffer is known to be
DMA-safe), but it requires rewriting all MTD users if we want to keep
decent perfs (the amount of data transfered to a flash is an order of
magnitude bigger than what you usually receive/send from/to an I2C
device). Also, I'm not even sure the DMA_SAFE flag covers all weird
cases like the "DMA engine embedded in the controller is not able to
access the whole physical memory range" one. So ideally we should have
something that checks if a pointer is DMA-safe at the device level and
then at the arch level.

A temporary solution would be to add a hook at the nand_controller
level:

	bool (*buf_is_dma_safe)(struct nand_chip *chip, void *buf,
				size_t len);

And then fallback to the default implementation when it's not
implemented:

static bool nand_buf_is_dma_safe(struct nand_chip *chip, void *buf,
				 size_t len)
{
	if (chip->controller->ops && chip->controller->ops->is_dma_safe)
		return chip->controller->ops->is_dma_safe(chip, buf,
							  len);

	return virt_addr_valid(buf) && !object_is_on_stack(buf);
}

> I suppose using the CONFIG_DMA_API_DEBUG option could help
> more reliably to find such issues.

Actually, the problem is not only about detecting offenders but being
able to detect when a buffer is not DMA-safe at runtime in order to
allocate/use a bounce buffer.