Re: [PATCH] arm64: mm: set ZONE_DMA size based on early IORT scan

[Lorenzo Pieralisi <lorenzo.pieralisi@arm.com>]

On Tue, Oct 13, 2020 at 03:42:07PM +0200, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Oct 2020 at 15:13, Lorenzo Pieralisi
> <lorenzo.pieralisi@arm.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Oct 13, 2020 at 01:22:32PM +0200, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > > > diff --git a/Documentation/arm64/arm-acpi.rst b/Documentation/arm64/arm-acpi.rst
> > > > > index 47ecb9930dde..947f5b5c45ef 100644
> > > > > --- a/Documentation/arm64/arm-acpi.rst
> > > > > +++ b/Documentation/arm64/arm-acpi.rst
> > > > > @@ -205,6 +205,13 @@ devices available.  This list of tables is not meant to be all inclusive;
> > > > >  in some environments other tables may be needed (e.g., any of the APEI
> > > > >  tables from section 18) to support specific functionality.
> > > > >
> > > > > +It is assumed that all DMA capable devices in the system are able to
> > > > > +access the lowest 4 GB of system memory. If this is not the case, an
> > > > > +IORT describing those limitations is mandatory, even if an IORT is not
> > > > > +otherwise necessary to describe the I/O topology, and regardless of
> > > > > +whether _DMA methods are used to describe the DMA limitations more
> > > > > +precisely. Once the system has booted, _DMA methods will take precedence
> > > > > +over DMA addressing limits described in the IORT.
> > > >
> > > > If this is a boot requirement it must be in ARM's official documentation,
> > > > first, not the kernel one.
> > > >
> > > > I understand this is an urgent (well - no comments on why bootstrapping
> > > > ACPI on Raspberry PI4 is causing all this fuss, honestly) fix but that's
> > > > not a reason to rush through these guidelines.
> > > >
> > > > I would not add this paragraph to arm-acpi.rst, yet.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Which documentation? ACPI compliance by itself is not sufficient for a
> > > system to be able to boot Linux/arm64, which is why we documented the
> > > requirements for ACPI boot on Linux/arm64 in this file. I don't think
> > > we need endorsement from ARM to decide that odd platforms like this
> > > need to abide by some additional rules if they want to boot in ACPI
> > > mode.
> >
> > I think we do - if we don't we should not add this documentation either.
> >
> > ACPI on ARM64 software stack is based on standardized HW requirements.
> > The sheer fact that we need to work around a HW deficiency shows that
> > either this platform should have never been booted with ACPI or the _HW_
> > design guidelines (BSA) are not tight enough.
> >
> > Please note that as you may have understood I asked if we can implement
> > a workaround in IORT because that's information that must be there
> > regardless (and an OEM ID match in arch code - though pragmatic -
> > defeats the whole purpose), I don't think we should tell Linux kernel
> > developers how firmware must be written to work around blatantly
> > non-compliant systems.
> >
> 
> This is not about systems being compliant or not, unless there is a
> requirement somewhere that I missed that all masters in the system
> must be able to access at least 32 bits of DMA.

I think there is in the SBSA (4.1.3 Memory Map) but regardless, this
is clearly a design bug, that's not a feature.

> The problem here is that Linux/arm64 cannot deal with fully compliant
> systems that communicate their [permitted] DMA limitations via a _DMA
> method if this limitation happens to be that the address limit < 32
> bits. The DMA subsystem can deal with this fine, only the default DMA
> zone sizing policy creates an internal issue where the DMA subsystem
> is not able to allocate memory that matches the DMA constraints.
> 
> So the 'correct' fix here would be to rework the memory allocator so
> it can deal with arbitrary DMA limits at allocation time, so that any
> limit returned by a _DMA method can be adhered to on the fly.
> 
> However, we all agree that the Raspberry Pi4 is not worth that effort,
> and that in the general case, SoCs with such limitations, even if they
> are compliant per the spec, are not worth the trouble of complicating
> this even more. So as a compromise, I think it is perfectly reasonable
> to require that systems that have such limitations communicate them
> via the IORT, which we can parse early, regardless of whether _DMA
> methods exist as well, and whether they return the same information.
> 
> So this is not a requirement on arm64 ACPI systems in general. It is a
> requirement that expresses that we, as arm64
> contributors/[co-]maintainers, are willing to cater for such systems
> if they implement their firmware in a particular way.

I don't think they should implement their firmware in any particular
way, that's my point, I don't want them to in the first place.

To start with there is no spec I am aware of that defines when/how to
use _DMA vs IORT address limits, maybe we should spell that out better
somewhere and that's useful regardless.

My point is: either this workaround works with firmware written with
guidelines valid for all arm64 systems (not as a special case: add an
IORT table because we can't parse _DMA to workaround DMA address range
shenanigans) or I am not willing to merge it - I prefer to add an OEM ID
quirk and show what we are forced to do to make this work.

Thanks,
Lorenzo