Re: [PATCH 3/3] mailbox: apple: Add driver for Apple mailboxes

From: Alyssa Rosenzweig
Date: Tue Sep 07 2021 - 14:57:20 EST


> + Apple SoCs have various co-processors that need to be started and
> + initialized for certain peripherals to work (NVMe, display controller,
> + etc.). This driver adds support for the mailbox controller used to
> + communicate with those.

This makes it seem like it's just a boot time issue. Maybe that's the
case for NVMe? In general the mailbox is needed 100% of the time. I
suggest something like:

Apple SoCs have various co-processors required for certain
peripherals to work (NVMe, display controller, etc.). This
driver adds support for the mailbox controller used to
communicate with those.

> + * Copyright (C) 2021 The Asahi Linux Contributors

Isn't this all you?

> + * Various clients implement different IPC protocols based on these simple

s/clients/coprocessors/ or firmware or something?

> + * Both the main CPU and the co-processor see the same set of registers but
> + * the first FIFO (A2I) is always used to transfer messages from the application
> + * processor (us) to the I/O processor and the second one (I2A) for the
> + * other direction.

Do we actually know what the copro sees? It seems obvious, but *know*?

> +#define APPLE_ASC_MBOX_CONTROL_FULL BIT(16)
> +#define APPLE_ASC_MBOX_CONTROL_EMPTY BIT(17)
> +
> +#define APPLE_ASC_MBOX_A2I_CONTROL 0x110
> +#define APPLE_ASC_MBOX_A2I_SEND0 0x800
> +#define APPLE_ASC_MBOX_A2I_SEND1 0x808
> +#define APPLE_ASC_MBOX_A2I_RECV0 0x810
> +#define APPLE_ASC_MBOX_A2I_RECV1 0x818
> +
> +#define APPLE_ASC_MBOX_I2A_CONTROL 0x114
> +#define APPLE_ASC_MBOX_I2A_SEND0 0x820
> +#define APPLE_ASC_MBOX_I2A_SEND1 0x828
> +#define APPLE_ASC_MBOX_I2A_RECV0 0x830
> +#define APPLE_ASC_MBOX_I2A_RECV1 0x838
> +
> +#define APPLE_M3_MBOX_A2I_CONTROL 0x50
> +#define APPLE_M3_MBOX_A2I_SEND0 0x60
> +#define APPLE_M3_MBOX_A2I_SEND1 0x68
> +#define APPLE_M3_MBOX_A2I_RECV0 0x70
> +#define APPLE_M3_MBOX_A2I_RECV1 0x78
> +
> +#define APPLE_M3_MBOX_I2A_CONTROL 0x80
> +#define APPLE_M3_MBOX_I2A_SEND0 0x90
> +#define APPLE_M3_MBOX_I2A_SEND1 0x98
> +#define APPLE_M3_MBOX_I2A_RECV0 0xa0
> +#define APPLE_M3_MBOX_I2A_RECV1 0xa8
> +
> +#define APPLE_M3_MBOX_CONTROL_FULL BIT(16)
> +#define APPLE_M3_MBOX_CONTROL_EMPTY BIT(17)

The ordering here is asymmetric (control bits on top or on bottom). Also
might be nicer to align things.

> +struct apple_mbox {
> + void __iomem *regs;
> + const struct apple_mbox_hw *hw;
> + ...
> +};

This requires a lot of pointer chasing to send/receive messages. Will
this become a perf issue in any case? It'd be good to get ballparks on
how often these mboxes are used. (For DCP, it doesn't matter, only a few
hundred messages per second. Other copros may have different behaviour)

> +static bool apple_mbox_hw_can_send(struct apple_mbox *apple_mbox)
> +{
> + u32 mbox_ctrl =
> + readl_relaxed(apple_mbox->regs + apple_mbox->hw->a2i_control);
> +
> + return !(mbox_ctrl & apple_mbox->hw->control_full);
> +}

If you do the pointer chasing, I suspect you want accessor
functions/macros at least to make it less intrusive...

> + dev_dbg(apple_mbox->dev, "> TX %016llx %08x\n", msg->msg0, msg->msg1);

Isn't "TX" redundant here?

> + dev_dbg(apple_mbox->dev, "got FIFO empty IRQ\n");

I realize it's a dev_dbg but this still seems unnecessarily noisy.

> +static irqreturn_t apple_mbox_recv_irq(int irq, void *data)
> +{
> + struct apple_mbox *apple_mbox = data;
> + struct apple_mbox_msg msg;
> +
> + while (apple_mbox_hw_can_recv(apple_mbox)) {
> + apple_mbox_hw_recv(apple_mbox, &msg);
> + mbox_chan_received_data(&apple_mbox->chan, (void *)&msg);
> + }
```

A comment is warranted why this loop is safe and will always terminate,
especially given this is an IRQ context. (Ah... can a malicious
coprocessor DoS the AP by sending messages faster than the AP can
process them? freezing the system since preemption might be disabled
here? I suppose thee's no good way to protect against that level of
goofy.)

> + * There's no race if a message comes in between the check in the while
> + * loop above and the ack below: If a new messages arrives inbetween
> + * those two the interrupt will just fire again immediately after the
> + * ack since it's level sensitive.

I don't quite understand the reasoning. Why have IRQ controls at all
then on the M3?

> + if (apple_mbox->hw->has_irq_controls)
> + writel_relaxed(apple_mbox->hw->irq_bit_recv_not_empty,
> + apple_mbox->regs + apple_mbox->hw->irq_ack);

Nit: { braces } since this is two lines. Unless kernel likes this sort
of scary aesthetic. Would go away with an accessor, of course.

> + /*
> + * Only some variants of this mailbox HW provide interrupt control
> + * at the mailbox level. We therefore need to handle enabling/disabling
> + * interrupts at the main interrupt controller anyway for hardware that
> + * doesn't. Just always keep the interrupts we care about enabled at
> + * the mailbox level so that both hardware revisions behave almost
> + * the same.
> + */

Cute. Does macOS do this? Are there any tradeoffs?

> + irqname = devm_kasprintf(dev, GFP_KERNEL, "%s-recv", dev_name(dev));
...
> + irqname = devm_kasprintf(dev, GFP_KERNEL, "%s-send", dev_name(dev));

Not sure this is better or worse than specifying IRQ names in the device
tree... probably less greppable.

> +++ b/include/linux/apple-mailbox.h
> @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
> +/* SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-only OR MIT */
> +/*
> + * Apple mailbox message format
> + *
> + * Copyright (C) 2021 The Asahi Linux Contributors
> + */
> +
> +#ifndef _LINUX_APPLE_MAILBOX_H_
> +#define _LINUX_APPLE_MAILBOX_H_
> +
> +#include <linux/types.h>
> +
> +struct apple_mbox_msg {
> + u64 msg0;
> + u32 msg1;
> +};
> +
> +#endif

Seems like such a waste to have a dedicated file for a single structure
:'( I guess it's needed for the rtkit library but still ....