Re: [RFC 0/7] Introduce bus domains controller framework

[Rob Herring <robh@kernel.org>]

On Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 8:42 AM Benjamin Gaignard
<benjamin.gaignard@st.com> wrote:
>
> The goal of this framework is to offer an interface for the
> hardware blocks controlling bus accesses rights.
>
> Bus domains controllers are typically used to control if a
> hardware block can perform read or write operations on bus.

Lots of things are domains. Power domains, clock domains, etc. But
naming is hard.

We now have the inter-connect binding which ATM only deals with
bandwidth. Any reason we can't add access controls to that?

> Smarter domains controllers could be able to define accesses
> rights per hardware blocks to control where they can read
> or write.
>
> Domains controller configurations are provided in device node,
> parsed by the framework and send to the driver to apply them.
> Each controller may need different number and type of inputs
> to configure a domain so device-tree properties size have to
> be define by using "#domainctrl-cells".
> Domains configurations properties have to be named "domainsctrl-X"
> on device node.
> "domainsctrl-names" keyword can also be used to give a name to
> a specific configuration.
>
> An example of bus domains controller is STM32 ETZPC hardware block
> which got 3 domains:
> - secure: hardware blocks are only accessible by software running on trust
>   zone.
> - non-secure: hardware blocks are accessible by non-secure software (i.e.
>   linux kernel).
> - coprocessor: hardware blocks are only accessible by the corpocessor.

We already have a way to assign secure vs. non-secure with 'status'.
Ignoring co-processors for a minute, why does that not work for you?

Co-processors are so varied in terms of capabilities and view of the
system, I'm not sure we can define something generic.

> Up to 94 hardware blocks of the soc could be managed by ETZPC and
> assigned to one of the three domains.
>
> It is an RFC, comments are welcome to help to create this framework, thanks.

Finally, for a new, common binding, I'd like to see more than one
platform using it (or at least an intent to use it).

Rob