Re: [PATCH] coresight: tmc-etr: Don't fail probe when non-secure access is disabled

[Yabin Cui]

Hi Suzuki,

> Are you not able to build the coresight drivers as modules and load
> them after the device has been authenticated and NS access enabled ?
> Running a trace session without NS access enabled on a normal device
> would be asking for trouble in the "normal world".

Theoretically we can load coresight drivers after getting NS access.
But in practice,
it makes the userspace work more complex. The process will be as below:
1. Use device specific checks to know if we have NS access authorized.
    Because we can't use the general coresight sysfs interface to read
authstatus.
2. Load coresight driver modules.
3. Use ETM/ETR.

It needs to add device specific checks in Android AOSP code (which we
don't prefer),
and add an extra step to load driver modules. It's more complex no matter we do
it in a daemon or want to use ETM/ETR manually.

If we can load the coresight drivers at boot time. The process is
simplified as below:
1. Use the coresight sysfs interface to read authstatus. It works on
all devices.
2. If authorized, use ETM/ETR.

The authorization used on Pixel devices can be granted/revoked while running.
So not allowing loading coresight drivers doesn't help us. We always need to
check authstatus each time before using ETM/ETR. And the check can be
easily added in tools using ETM/ETR.

Thanks,
Yabin

On Wed, Aug 30, 2023 at 1:52 AM Suzuki K Poulose <suzuki.poulose@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Hi Yabin
>
> On 29/08/2023 22:16, Yabin Cui wrote:
> >> How can this be enabled ? Why not enable it before probing the ETR ?
> > How can a user know if this has been done or not ?
> >
> > Pixel devices (like Pixel 6, 7) support enabling some debugging features
> > (including granting non-secure access to ETM/ETR) even on devices with
> > secure boot. It is only used internally and has strict requirements,
> > needing to connect to a server to verify identification after booting.
> > So it can't be established when probing ETR at device boot time.
>
> Are you not able to build the coresight drivers as modules and load
> them after the device has been authenticated and NS access enabled ?
> Running a trace session without NS access enabled on a normal device
> would be asking for trouble in the "normal world".
>
> Suzuki
>
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Aug 27, 2023 at 2:37 PM Suzuki K Poulose <suzuki.poulose@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>
> >> On 26/08/2023 00:39, Yabin Cui wrote:
> >>> Because the non-secure access can be enabled later on some devices.
> >>
> >> How can this be enabled ? Why not enable it before probing the ETR ?
> >> How can a user know if this has been done or not ? It is asking for
> >> trouble to continue without this.
> >>
> >> Suzuki
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Signed-off-by: Yabin Cui <yabinc@xxxxxxxxxx>
> >>> ---
> >>>    drivers/hwtracing/coresight/coresight-tmc-core.c | 2 +-
> >>>    1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> >>>
> >>> diff --git a/drivers/hwtracing/coresight/coresight-tmc-core.c b/drivers/hwtracing/coresight/coresight-tmc-core.c
> >>> index c106d142e632..5ebfd12b627b 100644
> >>> --- a/drivers/hwtracing/coresight/coresight-tmc-core.c
> >>> +++ b/drivers/hwtracing/coresight/coresight-tmc-core.c
> >>> @@ -370,7 +370,7 @@ static int tmc_etr_setup_caps(struct device *parent, u32 devid, void *dev_caps)
> >>>        struct tmc_drvdata *drvdata = dev_get_drvdata(parent);
> >>>
> >>>        if (!tmc_etr_has_non_secure_access(drvdata))
> >>> -             return -EACCES;
> >>> +             dev_warn(parent, "TMC ETR doesn't have non-secure access\n");
> >>>
> >>>        /* Set the unadvertised capabilities */
> >>>        tmc_etr_init_caps(drvdata, (u32)(unsigned long)dev_caps);
> >>
>