Re: [PATCH v2 1/4] dt-bindings: reserved-memory: Document "active" property

[Thierry Reding]

On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 08:33:09PM +0100, Thierry Reding wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 06, 2020 at 04:25:48PM +0100, Thierry Reding wrote:
> > On Thu, Nov 05, 2020 at 05:47:21PM +0000, Robin Murphy wrote:
> > > On 2020-11-05 16:43, Thierry Reding wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Sep 24, 2020 at 01:27:25PM +0200, Thierry Reding wrote:
> > > > > On Tue, Sep 15, 2020 at 02:36:48PM +0200, Thierry Reding wrote:
> > > > > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2020 at 04:08:29PM -0600, Rob Herring wrote:
> > > > > > > On Fri, Sep 04, 2020 at 02:59:57PM +0200, Thierry Reding wrote:
> > > > > > > > From: Thierry Reding <treding@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > Reserved memory regions can be marked as "active" if hardware is
> > > > > > > > expected to access the regions during boot and before the operating
> > > > > > > > system can take control. One example where this is useful is for the
> > > > > > > > operating system to infer whether the region needs to be identity-
> > > > > > > > mapped through an IOMMU.
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > I like simple solutions, but this hardly seems adequate to solve the
> > > > > > > problem of passing IOMMU setup from bootloader/firmware to the OS. Like
> > > > > > > what is the IOVA that's supposed to be used if identity mapping is not
> > > > > > > used?
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > The assumption here is that if the region is not active there is no need
> > > > > > for the IOVA to be specified because the kernel will allocate memory and
> > > > > > assign any IOVA of its choosing.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Also, note that this is not meant as a way of passing IOMMU setup from
> > > > > > the bootloader or firmware to the OS. The purpose of this is to specify
> > > > > > that some region of memory is actively being accessed during boot. The
> > > > > > particular case that I'm looking at is where the bootloader set up a
> > > > > > splash screen and keeps it on during boot. The bootloader has not set up
> > > > > > an IOMMU mapping and the identity mapping serves as a way of keeping the
> > > > > > accesses by the display hardware working during the transitional period
> > > > > > after the IOMMU translations have been enabled by the kernel but before
> > > > > > the kernel display driver has had a chance to set up its own IOMMU
> > > > > > mappings.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > > If you know enough about the regions to assume identity mapping, then
> > > > > > > can't you know if active or not?
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > We could alternatively add some property that describes the region as
> > > > > > requiring an identity mapping. But note that we can't make any
> > > > > > assumptions here about the usage of these regions because the IOMMU
> > > > > > driver simply has no way of knowing what they are being used for.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Some additional information is required in device tree for the IOMMU
> > > > > > driver to be able to make that decision.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Rob, can you provide any hints on exactly how you want to move this
> > > > > forward? I don't know in what direction you'd like to proceed.
> > > > 
> > > > Hi Rob,
> > > > 
> > > > do you have any suggestions on how to proceed with this? I'd like to get
> > > > this moving again because it's something that's been nagging me for some
> > > > months now. It also requires changes across two levels in the bootloader
> > > > stack as well as Linux and it takes quite a bit of work to make all the
> > > > changes, so before I go and rewrite everything I'd like to get the DT
> > > > bindings sorted out first.
> > > > 
> > > > So just to summarize why I think this simple solution is good enough: it
> > > > tries to solve a very narrow and simple problem. This is not an attempt
> > > > at describing the firmware's full IOMMU setup to the kernel. In fact, it
> > > > is primarily targetted at cases where the firmware hasn't setup an IOMMU
> > > > at all, and we just want to make sure that when the kernel takes over
> > > > and does want to enable the IOMMU, that all the regions that are
> > > > actively being accessed by non-quiesced hardware (the most typical
> > > > example would be a framebuffer scanning out a splat screen or animation,
> > > > but it could equally well be some sort of welcoming tone or music being
> > > > played back) are described in device tree.
> > > > 
> > > > In other words, and this is perhaps better answering your second
> > > > question: in addition to describing reserved memory regions, we want to
> > > > add a bit of information here about the usage of these memory regions.
> > > > Some memory regions may contain information that the kernel may want to
> > > > use (such an external memory frequency scaling tables) and those I would
> > > > describe as "inactive" memory because it isn't being accessed by
> > > > hardware. The framebuffer in this case is the opposite and it is being
> > > > actively accessed (hence it is marked "active") by hardware while the
> > > > kernel is busy setting everything up so that it can reconfigure that
> > > > hardware and take over with its own framebuffer (for the console, for
> > > > example). It's also not so much that we know enough about the region to
> > > > assume it needs identity mapping. We don't really care about that from
> > > > the DT point of view. In fact, depending on the rest of the system
> > > > configuration, we may not need identity mapping (i.e. if none of the
> > > > users of the reserved memory region are behind an IOMMU). But the point
> > > > here is that the IOMMU drivers can use this "active" property to
> > > > determine that if a device is using an "active" region and it is behind
> > > > an IOMMU, then it must identity map that region in order for the
> > > > hardware, which is not under the kernel's control yet, to be able to
> > > > continue to access that memory through an IOMMU mapping.
> > > 
> > > Hmm, "active" is not a property of the memory itself, though, it's really a
> > > property of the device accessing it. If several distinct devices share a
> > > carveout region, and for simplicity the bootloader marks it as active
> > > because one of those devices happens to be using some part of it at boot, we
> > > don't really want to have to do all the reserved region setup for all the
> > > other devices unnecessarily, when all that matters is not disrupting one of
> > > them when resetting the IOMMU.
> > > 
> > > That leads to another possible hiccup - some bindings already have a defined
> > > meaning for a "memory-region" property. If we use that to point to some
> > > small region for a temporary low-resolution bootsplash screen for visibility
> > > to an IOMMU driver, the device's own driver might also interpret it as a
> > > private carveout from which it is expected to allocate everything, and thus
> > > could end up failing to work well or at all.
> > > 
> > > I agree that we should only need a relatively simple binding, and that
> > > piggybacking off reserved-memory nodes seems like an ideal way of getting
> > > address range descriptions without too much extra complexity; the tricky
> > > part is how best to associate those with the other information needed, which
> > > is really the "iommus" property of the relevant device, and how to make it
> > > as generically discoverable as possible. Perhaps it might be workable to
> > > follow almost the same approach but with a dedicated property (e.g.
> > > "active-memory-region") that the IOMMU code can simply scan the DT for to
> > > determine relevant device nodes. Otherwise properties on the IOMMU node
> > > itself would seem the next most practical option.
> > 
> > We did recently introduce a "memory-region-names" property that's used
> > to add context for cases where multiple memory regions are used. Perhaps
> > the simplest to address the above would be to describe the region as
> > active by naming it "active". That has the disadvantage of restricting
> > the number of active regions to 1, though I suspect that may even be
> > enough for the vast majority of cases where we need this. This would be
> > similar to how we use the "dma-mem" string in the "interconnect-names"
> > property to specify the "DMA parent" of a device node.
> > 
> > Alternatively, we could perhaps support multiple occurrences of "active"
> > in the "memory-region-names" property. Or we could add a bit of
> > flexibility by considering all memory regions whose names have an
> > "active-" prefix as being active.
> > 
> > > We've also finally got things going on the IORT RMR side[1], which helps add
> > > a bit more shape to things too; beyond the actual firmware parsing, DT and
> > > ACPI systems should definitely be converging on the same internal
> > > implementation in the IOMMU layer.
> > 
> > Yeah, from a quick look at that series, this actually sounds really
> > close to what I'm trying to achieve here.
> > 
> > The patch set that I have would nicely complement the code added to
> > iommu_dma_get_resv_regions() for RMR regions. It's not exactly the same
> > code, but it's basically the DT equivalent of
> > iort_dev_rmr_get_resv_regions().
> 
> Hi Rob,
> 
> what's your preference here for DT bindings? Do you want me to reuse the
> existing memory-region/memory-region-names properties, or do you want
> something completely separate?

Hi Rob,

I've been thinking about this some more and I think I've come up with an
alternative that I think you might like better than what we discussed so
far.

Rather than reusing memory-region-names and guessing from the name what
the intended purpose was, how about we add the concept of memory region
specifiers to describe additional properties of reserved memory regions
uses? This would allow us to address Robin's concerns about describing
what's essentially a device property within the reserved memory region.

The way I imagine that this would work is that the reserved memory
regions would gain a new property, "#memory-region-cells", that defines
the number of cells that make up a reserved memory region specifier,
much like we have #clock-cells, #reset-cells, #pwm-cells, etc. Since
these specifier are defined where the regions are used, they would allow
us to encode information about that specific use, rather than properties
of the regions themselves.

This should also allow for backwards-compatibility where a missing
#memory-region-cells would be interpreted as 0 specifier (i.e. no
additional data).

Here's how this would look for the specific example that I want to
solve:

	#define MEMORY_REGION_ACTIVE 0x1

	/ {
		reserved-memory {
			lut: lookup-table@96060000 {
				reg = <0x96060000 0x00010000>;
				#memory-region-cells = <1>;
			};

			fbc: framebuffer@96070000 {
				reg = <0x96070000 0x800000>;
				#memory-region-cells = <1>;
			};
		};

		...

		host1x@50000000 {
			...

			display@54200000 {
				...
				memory-regions = <&fbc MEMORY_REGION_ACTIVE>,
						 <&lut MEMORY_REGION_ACTIVE>;
				...
			};

			...
		};
	};

As you can see, the reserved memory region nodes only contain properties
that are immediately related to the regions themselves, whereas the
"active" attribute now applies only for the specific use of the region
within display@54200000.

What do you think?

Thierry

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