Re: [RFC PATCH net-next 4/4] net: wwan: Add Qualcomm BAM-DMUX WWAN network driver

[Stephan Gerhold]

Hi Sergey,

On Tue, Jul 20, 2021 at 12:10:42PM +0300, Sergey Ryazanov wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 19, 2021 at 6:01 PM Stephan Gerhold <stephan@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > The BAM Data Multiplexer provides access to the network data channels of
> > modems integrated into many older Qualcomm SoCs, e.g. Qualcomm MSM8916 or
> > MSM8974. It is built using a simple protocol layer on top of a DMA engine
> > (Qualcomm BAM) and bidirectional interrupts to coordinate power control.
> >
> > The modem announces a fixed set of channels by sending an OPEN command.
> > The driver exports each channel as separate network interface so that
> > a connection can be established via QMI from userspace. The network
> > interface can work either in Ethernet or Raw-IP mode (configurable via
> > QMI). However, Ethernet mode seems to be broken with most firmwares
> > (network packets are actually received as Raw-IP), therefore the driver
> > only supports Raw-IP mode.
> >
> > The driver uses runtime PM to coordinate power control with the modem.
> > TX/RX buffers are put in a kind of "ring queue" and submitted via
> > the bam_dma driver of the DMAEngine subsystem.
> >
> > The basic architecture looks roughly like this:
> >
> >                    +------------+                +-------+
> >          [IPv4/6]  |  BAM-DMUX  |                |       |
> >          [Data...] |            |                |       |
> >         ---------->|rmnet0      | [DMUX chan: x] |       |
> >          [IPv4/6]  | (chan: 0)  | [IPv4/6]       |       |
> >          [Data...] |            | [Data...]      |       |
> >         ---------->|rmnet1      |--------------->| Modem |
> >                    | (chan: 1)  |      BAM       |       |
> >          [IPv4/6]  | ...        |  (DMA Engine)  |       |
> >          [Data...] |            |                |       |
> >         ---------->|rmnet7      |                |       |
> >                    | (chan: 7)  |                |       |
> >                    +------------+                +-------+
> >
> > However, on newer SoCs/firmware versions Qualcomm began gradually moving
> > to QMAP (rmnet driver) as backend-independent protocol for multiplexing
> > and data aggegration. Some firmware versions allow using QMAP on top of
> > BAM-DMUX (effectively resulting in a second multiplexing layer plus data
> > aggregation). The architecture with QMAP would look roughly like this:
> >
> >            +-------------+           +------------+                  +-------+
> >  [IPv4/6]  |    RMNET    |           |  BAM-DMUX  |                  |       |
> >  [Data...] |             |           |            | [DMUX chan: 0]   |       |
> > ---------->|rmnet_data1  |     ----->|rmnet0      | [QMAP mux-id: x] |       |
> >            | (mux-id: 1) |     |     | (chan: 0)  | [IPv4/6]         |       |
> >            |             |     |     |            | [Data...]        |       |
> >  [IPv4/6]  | ...         |------     |            |----------------->| Modem |
> >  [Data...] |             |           |            |       BAM        |       |
> > ---------->|rmnet_data42 | [QMAP: x] |[rmnet1]    |   (DMA Engine)   |       |
> >            | (mux-id: 42)| [IPv4/6]  |... unused! |                  |       |
> >            |             | [Data...] |[rmnet7]    |                  |       |
> >            |             |           |            |                  |       |
> >            +-------------+           +------------+                  +-------+
> >
> > In this case, rmnet1-7 would remain unused. The firmware used on the most
> > recent SoCs with BAM-DMUX even seems to announce only a single BAM-DMUX
> > channel (rmnet0), which makes QMAP the only option for multiplexing there.
> >
> > So far the driver is mainly tested on various smartphones/tablets based on
> > Qualcomm MSM8916/MSM8974 without QMAP. It looks like QMAP depends on a MTU
> > negotiation feature in BAM-DMUX which is not yet supported by the driver.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Stephan Gerhold <stephan@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> > ---
> > Note that this is my first network driver, so I apologize in advance
> > if I made some obvious mistakes. :)
> >
> > I'm not sure how to integrate the driver with the WWAN subsystem yet.
> > At the moment the driver creates network interfaces for all channels
> > announced by the modem, it does not make use of the WWAN link management
> > yet. Unfortunately, this is a bit complicated:
> >
> > Both QMAP and the built-in multiplexing layer might be needed at some point.
> > There are firmware versions that do not support QMAP and the other way around
> > (the built-in multiplexing was disabled on very recent firmware versions).
> > Only userspace can check if QMAP is supported in the firmware (via QMI).
> 
> I am not very familiar with the Qualcomm protocols and am just curious
> whether BAM-DMUX has any control (management) channels or only IPv4/v6
> data channels?
> 
> The WWAN subsystem began as a framework for exporting management
> interfaces (MBIM, AT, etc.) to user space. And then the network
> interfaces (data channels) management interface was added to
> facilitate management of devices with multiple data channels. That is
> why I am curious about the BAM-DMUX device management interface or in
> other words, how a user space application could control the modem
> work?
> 

Sorry for the confusion! It's briefly mentioned in the Kconfig option
but I should have made this more clear in the commit message. It was so
long already that I wasn't sure where to put it. :)

BAM-DMUX does not have any control channels. Instead I use it together
with the rpmsg_wwan_ctrl driver [1] that I already submitted for 5.14.
The control/data channels are pretty much separate in this setup and
don't have much to do with each other.

I also had a short overview of some of the many different modem
protocols Qualcomm has come up with in a related RFC for that driver,
see [2] if you are curious.

I hope that clarifies some things, please let me know if I should
explain something better! :)

Thanks!
Stephan

[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20210618173611.134685-3-stephan@xxxxxxxxxxx/
[2]: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/YLfL9Q+4860uqS8f@xxxxxxxxxxx/