New sysfs interface for privacy screens

Mon Oct 7 04:56:43 UTC 2019

Hi,

Me and Mat are working on this together, and I had a followup to
something Mat asked earlier.

On Thu, Oct 3, 2019 at 12:57 PM Mat King <mathewk at google.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Oct 3, 2019 at 2:59 AM Jani Nikula <jani.nikula at linux.intel.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 02 Oct 2019, Mat King <mathewk at google.com> wrote:
> > > On Wed, Oct 2, 2019 at 4:46 AM Jani Nikula <jani.nikula at linux.intel.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> On Wed, 02 Oct 2019, Daniel Thompson <daniel.thompson at linaro.org> wrote:
> > >> > On Wed, Oct 02, 2019 at 12:30:05PM +0300, Jani Nikula wrote:
> > >> >> On Tue, 01 Oct 2019, Mat King <mathewk at google.com> wrote:
> > >> >> > Resending in plain text mode
> > >> >> >
> One question I still have is there a way to not accept a value that is
> passed to drm_mode_connector_set_obj_prop()? In this case if a privacy
> screen is not registered the property must stay PRIVACY_UNSUPPORTED
> and if a privacy screen is registered then PRIVACY_UNSUPPORTED must
> never be set.
> One question I still have is there a way to not accept a value that is
> passed to drm_mode_connector_set_obj_prop()? In this case if a privacy
> screen is not registered the property must stay PRIVACY_UNSUPPORTED
> and if a privacy screen is registered then PRIVACY_UNSUPPORTED must
> never be set.

Any guidance here on this?

Essentially I think we are looking for a way to
1) expose the "capability" of having a privacy screen feature from
kernel to userland, and
2) then a way to "control" (enable / disable) the feature from
userland to kernel. I understand DRM connector property is the
suggested way to do this.

But I was not clear if DRM connector properties a recommended way to
do (1) also. If yes, then Mat's posted a proposal
(https://lkml.org/lkml/2019/10/3/2068) but I did not see any comment
specifically if that idea looked reasonable. Also looking for any
guidance to Mat's question above.

Thanks,

Rajat

>
> > >> >> > I have been looking into adding Linux support for electronic privacy
> > >> >> > screens which is a feature on some new laptops which is built into the
> > >> >> > display and allows users to turn it on instead of needing to use a
> > >> >> > physical privacy filter. In discussions with my colleagues the idea of
> > >> >> > using either /sys/class/backlight or /sys/class/leds but this new
> > >> >> > feature does not seem to quite fit into either of those classes.
> > >> >> >
> > >> >> > I am proposing adding a class called "privacy_screen" to interface
> > >> >> > with these devices. The initial API would be simple just a single
> > >> >> > property called "privacy_state" which when set to 1 would mean that
> > >> >> > privacy is enabled and 0 when privacy is disabled.
> > >> >> >
> > >> >> > Current known use cases will use ACPI _DSM in order to interface with
> > >> >> > the privacy screens, but this class would allow device driver authors
> > >> >> > to use other interfaces as well.
> > >> >> >
> > >> >> > Example:
> > >> >> >
> > >> >> > # get privacy screen state
> > >> >> > cat /sys/class/privacy_screen/cros_privacy/privacy_state # 1: privacy
> > >> >> > enabled 0: privacy disabled
> > >> >> >
> > >> >> > # set privacy enabled
> > >> >> > echo 1 > /sys/class/privacy_screen/cros_privacy/privacy_state
> > >> >> >
> > >> >> >  Does this approach seem to be reasonable?
> > >> >>
> > >> >> What part of the userspace would be managing the privacy screen? Should
> > >> >> there be a connection between the display and the privacy screen that
> > >> >> covers the display? How would the userspace make that connection if it's
> > >> >> a sysfs interface?
> > >> >>
> > >> >> I don't know how the privacy screen operates, but if it draws any power,
> > >> >> you'll want to disable it when you switch off the display it covers.
> > >> >>
> > >> >> If the privacy screen control was part of the graphics subsystem (say, a
> > >> >> DRM connector property, which feels somewhat natural), I think it would
> > >> >> make it easier for userspace to have policies such as enabling the
> > >> >> privacy screen automatically depending on the content you're viewing,
> > >> >> but only if the content is on the display that has a privacy screen.
> > >> >
> > >> > Connectors versus sysfs came up on a backlight thread recently.
> > >> >
> > >> > Daniel Vetter wrote an excellent summary on why it has been (and still
> > >> > is) difficult to migrate backlight controls towards the DRM connector
> > >> > interface:
> > >> > https://lkml.org/lkml/2019/8/20/752
> > >> >
> > >> > Many of the backlight legacy problems do not apply to privacy screens
> > >> > but I do suggest reading this post and some of the neighbouring parts
> > >> > of the thread. In particular the ACPI driver versus real driver issues
> > >> > Daniel mentioned could occur again. Hopefully not though, I mean how
> > >> > wrong can a 1-bit control go? (actually no... don't answer that).
> > >> >
> > >> > It would definitely be a shame to build up an unnecessary sysfs legacy
> > >> > for privacy screens so definitely worth seeing if this can use DRM
> > >> > connector properties.
> > >>
> > >> Indeed. I'm painfully aware of the issues Daniel describes, and that's
> > >> part of the motivation for writing this.
> > >>
> > >> Obviously the problem with associating the privacy screen with the DRM
> > >> connector is that then the kernel has to make the connection, somehow,
> > >> instead of just making it a userspace problem.
> > >>
> > >> BR,
> > >> Jani.
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> Jani Nikula, Intel Open Source Graphics Center
> > >
> > > I am not familiar with the DRM connector interface and I don't quite
> > > understand how it would work in this case. How would the connector
> > > provide control to userspace? Is there documentation or example code
> > > somewhere that you could point me to?
> >
> > Here are some links, from the general to more specific. Don't get
> > overwhelmed. ;)
> >
> > https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/gpu/index.html
> > https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/gpu/drm-kms.html
> > https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/gpu/drm-kms.html#kms-properties
> >
> > The kms userspace tests have some example code. Likely pretty far from
> > what a nice userspace would actually look like, but you get the idea.
> >
> > https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/igt-gpu-tools/blob/master/tests/kms_properties.c
> >
> > Finally, the larger point all along in exposing this via connector
> > properties is that this could be integrated to some graphics userspace
> > for a nice user experience, instead of scattering a bunch of userspace
> > APIs for the same feature across the kernel, and then desperately trying
> > to gather them to a coherent experience in userspace.
> >
> > In fact, to that end we have rather more strict requirements for
> > userspace APIs in drm than perhaps the rest of the kernel:
> >
> > https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/gpu/drm-uapi.html#open-source-userspace-requirements
> >
> > Just shoving this into sysfs or procfs to get the kernel part done is
> > technical debt that ultimately has to be paid by userspace. The
> > backlight sysfs interface is ancient, and we didn't know better. We
> > don't have that excuse anymore.
> >
> >
> > BR,
> > Jani.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Jani Nikula, Intel Open Source Graphics Center
>
> Thanks Jani, the DRM connector picture is much more clear now after
> reading through those.
>
> So my proposal would now be to add a new standard property to
> drm_connector called "privacy_screen" this property would be an enum
> which can take one of three values.
>
> PRIVACY_UNSUPPORTED - Privacy is not available for this connector
> PRIVACY_DISABLED - Privacy is available but turned off
> PRIVACY_ENABLED - Privacy is available and turned on
>
> When the connector is initized the privacy screen property is set to
> PRIVACY_UNSUPPORTED and cannot be changed unless a drm_privacy_screen
> is registered to the connector. drm_privacy_screen will look something
> like
>
> struct drm_privacy_screen_ops {
>     int (*get_privacy_state)(struct drm_privacy_screen *);
>     int (*set_privacy_state)(struct drm_privacy_screen *, int);
> }
>
> struct drm_privacy_screen {
>     /* The privacy screen device */
>     struct device *dev;
>
>     /* The connector that the privacy screen is attached */
>     struct drm_connector *connector;
>
>     /* Ops to get and set the privacy screen state */
>     struct drm_privacy_screen_ops *ops;
>
>     /* The current state of the privacy screen */
>     int state;
> }
>
> Privacy screen device drivers will call a function to register the
> privacy screen with the connector.
>
> int drm_privacy_screen_register(struct drm_privacy_screen_ops *ops,
> struct device *dev, struct drm_connector *);
>
> Calling this will set a new field on the connector "struct
> drm_privacy_screen *privacy_screen" and change the value of the
> property to ops->get_privacy_state(). When
> drm_mode_connector_set_obj_prop() is called with the
> privacy_screen_proptery if a privacy_screen is registered to the
> connector the ops->set_privacy_state() will be called with the new
> value.
>
> Setting of this property (and all drm properties) is done in user
> space using ioctrl.
>
> Registering the privacy screen with a connector may be tricky because
> the driver for the privacy screen will need to be able to identify
> which connector it belongs to and we will have to deal with connectors
> being added both before and after the privacy screen device is added
> by it's driver.
>
> How does that sound? I will work on a patch if that all sounds about right.
>
> One question I still have is there a way to not accept a value that is
> passed to drm_mode_connector_set_obj_prop()? In this case if a privacy
> screen is not registered the property must stay PRIVACY_UNSUPPORTED
> and if a privacy screen is registered then PRIVACY_UNSUPPORTED must
> never be set.