[PATCH v2 0/2] rust: honor the maximum DMA segment size

From: Matteo Kloiber

Date: Sun Sep 13 2026 - 17:10:55 EST


Booting nova-core against a real GSP with CONFIG_DMA_API_DEBUG=y warns
when the ~60 MiB firmware image is mapped as a scatter-gather table:

DMA-API: nova-core 0000:00:03.0: mapping sg segment longer than
device claims to support [len=62914560] [max=65536]

There are two separate issues behind it.

Patch 1 has nova-core declare the segment size it actually supports. It
re-decomposes every segment into 4 KiB GSP page-table entries, so it has
no upper bound on segment length.

Furthermore, I also checked what other GPUs do, and most do the same:
set the max segment size u32::MAX. So this should be the correct
behavior for nova as well.

Patch 2 has SGTable::new() honor dma_get_max_seg_size() in addition to
dma_max_mapping_size(). The abstraction is generic, so a driver with a
real hardware segment limit would otherwise silently be handed segments
it cannot express in a single descriptor.

Tested on an RTX 5080 (GB203) passed through to a QEMU guest via VFIO
with CONFIG_DMA_API_DEBUG=y: the warning is gone, and GSP boot and RPC
still work.

Discussed on Zulip:
https://rust-for-linux.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/509436-Nova/topic/nova.20core.3A.20DMA-API.3A.20nova-core.200000.3A00.3A03.2E0.3A.20mapping.20sg.20segme/with/618319830

Changes in v2, all from Alexandre Courbot's review:
- Patch 1: use the `Assisted-by: LLM` form documented in
Documentation/process/coding-assistants.rst, and place the tag before
the Signed-off-by.
- Patch 1: trim the comment above dma_set_max_seg_size(), and state the
SAFETY invariant in full instead of referring to the comment above it.
- Patch 2: rename max_mapping -> max_mapping_size.
- Patch 2: drop the paragraph claiming nova-core is the only user; the
Rust DMA sample is one too, and neither is broken by this patch
landing without patch 1.
- Patch 2: picked up Alexandre's Reviewed-by.

No functional change since v1.

v1: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20260831233215.287881-1-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxx

Matteo Kloiber (2):
gpu: nova-core: declare unlimited DMA max segment size
rust: scatterlist: honor the device's maximum segment size

drivers/gpu/nova-core/gpu.rs | 7 +++++++
rust/helpers/dma.c | 5 +++++
rust/kernel/scatterlist.rs | 12 ++++++++++--
3 files changed, 22 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

Range-diff against v1:
1: bd1a05a64e05 ! 1: 8a8637f02fa1 gpu: nova-core: declare unlimited DMA max segment size
@@ Commit message

CONFIG_DMA_API_DEBUG=y is required to see this warning.

+ Assisted-by: LLM
Signed-off-by: Matteo Kloiber <kernel@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8

## drivers/gpu/nova-core/gpu.rs ##
@@ drivers/gpu/nova-core/gpu.rs: pub(crate) fn new<'a>(
// still constructing it, so no concurrent DMA allocations can exist.
unsafe { pdev.dma_set_mask_and_coherent(dma_mask)? };

-+ // Nova re-decomposes SG segments into 4 KiB page-table entries, so it
-+ // has no upper bound on segment length; declare that to the DMA layer.
++ // Nova walks SG segments to build page tables, so their length is
++ // irrelevant to the device.
+ //
-+ // SAFETY: same invariant as above -- still constructing, no concurrent
-+ // DMA mapping can exist.
++ // SAFETY: `Gpu` owns all DMA allocations for this device, and we are
++ // still constructing it, so no concurrent DMA allocations can exist.
+ unsafe { pdev.dma_set_max_seg_size(u32::MAX) };
+
hal.wait_gfw_boot_completion(bar)
2: 69ea96f9290b ! 2: 4f8a19794529 rust: scatterlist: honor the device's maximum segment size
@@ Commit message
potentially causing problems for future drivers that use this
abstraction.

- nova-core declares an unlimited segment size, so this does not change
- its behavior.
-
Fixes: 05aa6fb1c21d ("rust: scatterlist: Add abstraction for sg_table")
Signed-off-by: Matteo Kloiber <kernel@xxxxxxxxxxx>
+ Reviewed-by: Alexandre Courbot <acourbot@xxxxxxxxxx>

## rust/helpers/dma.c ##
@@ rust/helpers/dma.c: __rust_helper void rust_helper_dma_set_max_seg_size(struct device *dev,
@@ rust/kernel/scatterlist.rs: fn new(
//
// SAFETY: `dev.as_raw()` is a valid pointer to a `struct device`.
- let max_segment = match unsafe { bindings::dma_max_mapping_size(dev.as_raw()) } {
-+ let max_mapping = match unsafe { bindings::dma_max_mapping_size(dev.as_raw()) } {
++ let max_mapping_size = match unsafe { bindings::dma_max_mapping_size(dev.as_raw()) } {
0 => u32::MAX,
- max_segment => u32::try_from(max_segment).unwrap_or(u32::MAX),
-+ max_mapping => u32::try_from(max_mapping).unwrap_or(u32::MAX),
++ max_mapping_size => u32::try_from(max_mapping_size).unwrap_or(u32::MAX),
};

+ // SAFETY: `dev.as_raw()` is a valid pointer to a `struct device`.
+ let max_seg_size = unsafe { bindings::dma_get_max_seg_size(dev.as_raw()) };
+
-+ let max_segment = max_mapping.min(max_seg_size);
++ let max_segment = max_mapping_size.min(max_seg_size);
+
Ok(try_pin_init!(&this in Self {
// SAFETY:

base-commit: cee9395acd8043be0644b25c34bfa86623f2b935
--
2.51.2