Re: [RFC PATCH 8/9] surface_aggregator: Add DebugFS interface
From: Maximilian Luz
Date: Wed Sep 23 2020 - 18:23:11 EST
On 9/23/20 8:51 PM, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
On Wed, Sep 23, 2020 at 8:29 PM Maximilian Luz <luzmaximilian@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 9/23/20 6:48 PM, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
+ * struct ssam_debug_request - Controller request IOCTL argument.
+ * @target_category: Target category of the SAM request.
+ * @target_id: Target ID of the SAM request.
+ * @command_id: Command ID of the SAM request.
+ * @instance_id: Instance ID of the SAM request.
+ * @flags: SAM Request flags.
+ * @status: Request status (output).
+ * @payload: Request payload (input data).
+ * @payload.data: Pointer to request payload data.
+ * @payload.length: Length of request payload data (in bytes).
+ * @response: Request response (output data).
+ * @response.data: Pointer to response buffer.
+ * @response.length: On input: Capacity of response buffer (in bytes).
+ * On output: Length of request response (number of bytes
+ * in the buffer that are actually used).
+ */
+struct ssam_dbg_request {
+ __u8 target_category;
+ __u8 target_id;
+ __u8 command_id;
+ __u8 instance_id;
+ __u16 flags;
+ __s16 status;
+
+ struct {
+ const __u8 __user *data;
+ __u16 length;
+ __u8 __pad[6];
+ } payload;
+
+ struct {
+ __u8 __user *data;
+ __u16 length;
+ __u8 __pad[6];
+ } response;
+};
Binary interfaces are hard. In this case the indirect pointers mean that
32-bit user space has an incompatible layout, which you should not do.
Also, having an ioctl on a debugfs file is a bit odd. I wonder if you
could have this as a transactional file that performs only read/write
commands, i.e. you pass in a
struct ssam_dbg_request {
__u8 target_category;
__u8 target_id;
__u8 command_id;
__u8 instance_id;
__u16 flags;
__u8 payload[]; /* variable-length */
};
and you get out a
struct ssam_dbg_response {
__s16 status;
__u8 payload[];
};
and keep the rest unchanged. See fs/libfs.c for how this could be done
with simple_transaction files.
Thanks! Is there a way to make this compatible with a 32-bit user space?
The version I showed avoids the pointers and is compatible with
32-bit user space.
I'm not completely convinced yet that the read/write approach is the way
I want to do it, especially with Greg suggesting a misc device, but I'll
keep your solution in mind.
From a quick search, compat_ptr and compat_uptr_t would be the right way
to transfer pointer?
If you end up needing an indirect pointer, the most portable way is to
use a __u64 and read it using u64_to_user_ptr() in the kernel.
Thanks!
I've already laid out my main two rationales for using an IOCTL in the
reply to Greg, but here's an overview: First, IOCTLs allow me to execute
requests in parallel with only a single open file descriptor, and
without having to care about allocating buffers for the responses and
waiting until the buffer is read (yes, arguably I still have to manage
buffers, but only in the IOCTL function which I consider a bit more
manageable). I was previously unaware of the simple_transaction helpers
though, so thanks for that pointer! Second, I can easily expand that
interface to handle events sent by the EC, by having the user space
application read from that file. Although that could be moved to a
second file. I just felt having that option of keeping in one would
eventually result in a cleaner interface
The debugfs way is usually to just have additional files when you
do more than one thing, or if you need a new variant of that interface,
they are cheap.
Alright, thanks!
Regards,
Max