[RFC PATCH v1 0/6] Resolve unwanted DMA backing with IOMMU

[Dmitry Osipenko]

On Friday, 27 July 2018 20:16:53 MSK Dmitry Osipenko wrote:
> On Friday, 27 July 2018 20:03:26 MSK Jordan Crouse wrote:
> > On Fri, Jul 27, 2018 at 05:02:37PM +0100, Robin Murphy wrote:
> > > On 27/07/18 15:10, Dmitry Osipenko wrote:
> > > >On Friday, 27 July 2018 12:03:28 MSK Will Deacon wrote:
> > > >>On Fri, Jul 27, 2018 at 10:25:13AM +0200, Joerg Roedel wrote:
> > > >>>On Fri, Jul 27, 2018 at 02:16:18AM +0300, Dmitry Osipenko wrote:
> > > >>>>The proposed solution adds a new option to the base device driver
> > > >>>>structure that allows device drivers to explicitly convey to the
> > > >>>>drivers
> > > >>>>core that the implicit IOMMU backing for devices must not happen.
> > > >>>
> > > >>>Why is IOMMU mapping a problem for the Tegra GPU driver?
> > > >>>
> > > >>>If we add something like this then it should not be the choice of the
> > > >>>device driver, but of the user and/or the firmware.
> > > >>
> > > >>Agreed, and it would still need somebody to configure an identity
> > > >>domain
> > > >>so
> > > >>that transactions aren't aborted immediately. We currently allow the
> > > >>identity domain to be used by default via a command-line option, so I
> > > >>guess
> > > >>we'd need a way for firmware to request that on a per-device basis.
> > > >
> > > >The IOMMU mapping itself is not a problem, the problem is the
> > > >management
> > > >of
> > > >the IOMMU. For Tegra we don't want anything to intrude into the IOMMU
> > > >activities because:
> > > >
> > > >1) GPU HW require additional configuration for the IOMMU usage and dumb
> > > >mapping of the allocations simply doesn't work.
> > > 
> > > Generally, that's already handled by the DRM drivers allocating
> > > their own unmanaged domains. The only problem we really need to
> > > solve in that regard is that currently the device DMA ops don't get
> > > updated when moving away from the managed domain. That's been OK for
> > > the VFIO case where the device is bound to a different driver which
> > > we know won't make any explicit DMA API calls, but for the more
> > > general case of IOMMU-aware drivers we could certainly do with a bit
> > > of cooperation between the IOMMU API, DMA API, and arch code to
> > > update the DMA ops dynamically to cope with intermediate subsystems
> > > making DMA API calls on behalf of devices they don't know the
> > > intimate details of.
> > > 
> > > >2) Older Tegra generations have a limited resource and capabilities in
> > > >regards to IOMMU usage, allocating IOMMU domain per-device is just
> > > >impossible for example.
> > > >
> > > >3) HW performs context switches and so particular allocations have to
> > > >be
> > > >assigned to a particular contexts IOMMU domain.
> > > 
> > > I understand Qualcomm SoCs have a similar thing too, and AFAICS that
> > > case just doesn't fit into the current API model at all. We need the
> > > IOMMU driver to somehow know about the specific details of which
> > > devices have magic associations with specific contexts, and we
> > > almost certainly need a more expressive interface than
> > > iommu_domain_alloc() to have any hope of reliable results.
> > 
> > This is correct for Qualcomm GPUs - The GPU hardware context switching
> > requires a specific context and there are some restrictions around
> > secure contexts as well.
> > 
> > We don't really care if the DMA attaches to a context just as long as it
> > doesn't attach to the one(s) we care about. Perhaps a "valid context" mask
> > would work in from the DT or the device struct to give the subsystems a
> > clue as to which domains they were allowed to use. I recognize that there
> > isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to this problem so I'm open to
> > different
> > ideas.
> 
> Designating whether implicit IOMMU backing is appropriate for a device via
> device-tree property sounds a bit awkward because that will be a kinda
> software description (of a custom Linux driver model), while device-tree is
> supposed to describe HW.
> 
> What about to grant IOMMU drivers with ability to decide whether the
> implicit backing for a device is appropriate? Like this:
> 
> bool implicit_iommu_for_dma_is_allowed(struct device *dev)
> {
> 	const struct iommu_ops *ops = dev->bus->iommu_ops;
> 	struct iommu_group *group;
> 
> 	group = iommu_group_get(dev);
> 	if (!group)
> 		return NULL;
> 
> 	iommu_group_put(group);
> 
> 	if (!ops->implicit_iommu_for_dma_is_allowed)
> 		return true;
> 
> 	return ops->implicit_iommu_for_dma_is_allowed(dev);
> }
> 
> Then arch_setup_dma_ops() could have a clue whether implicit IOMMU backing
> for a device is appropriate.

Guys, does it sound good to you or maybe you have something else on your mind? 
Even if it's not an ideal solution, it fixes the immediate problem and should 
be good enough for the starter.