Re: [RFC PATCH 1/3] dma-mapping: introduce a new dma api dma_addr_to_phys_addr()

[Laurentiu Tudor]

Hi Robin,

On 22.10.2019 16:25, Robin Murphy wrote:
> On 22/10/2019 13:55, Laurentiu Tudor wrote:
>> From: Laurentiu Tudor <laurentiu.tudor@xxxxxxx>
>>
>> Introduce a new dma map op called dma_addr_to_phys_addr() that converts
>> a dma address to the physical address backing it up and add wrapper for
>> it.
> 
> I'd really love it if there was a name which could encapsulate that this 
> is *only* for extreme special cases of constrained descriptors/pagetable 
> entries/etc. where there's simply no practical way to keep track of a 
> CPU address alongside the DMA address, and the only option is this 
> potentially-arbitrarily-complex operation (I mean, on some systems it 
> may end up taking locks and poking hardware).
> 
> Either way it's tricky - much as I don't like adding an interface which 
> is ripe for drivers to misuse, I also really don't want hacks like 
> bdf95923086f shoved into other APIs to compensate, so on balance I'd 
> probably consider this proposal ever so slightly the lesser evil.

We had an internal discussion over these points you are raising and 
Madalin (cc-ed) came up with another idea: instead of adding this prone 
to misuse api how about experimenting with a new dma unmap and dma sync 
variants that would return the physical address by calling the newly 
introduced dma map op. Something along these lines:
  * phys_addr_t dma_unmap_page_ret_phys(...)
  * phys_addr_t dma_unmap_single_ret_phys(...)
  * phys_addr_t dma_sync_single_for_cpu_ret_phys(...)
I'm thinking that this proposal should reduce the risks opened by the 
initial variant.
Please let me know what you think.

---
Thanks & Best Regards, Laurentiu