Re: [PATCH 0/6] get rid of on-stack dma buffers

From: Florian Mickler <florian@mickler.org>
To: James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@hansenpartnership.com>
Cc: Andy Walls <awalls@md.metrocast.net>,
	mchehab@infradead.org, linux-media@vger.kernel.org,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, js@linuxtv.org, tskd2@yahoo.co.jp,
	liplianin@me.by, g.marco@freenet.de, aet@rasterburn.org,
	pb@linuxtv.org, mkrufky@linuxtv.org, nick@nick-andrew.net,
	max@veneto.com, janne-dvb@grunau.be,
	Oliver Neukum <oliver@neukum.org>,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <greg@kroah.com>,
	"Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@sisk.pl>,
	Joerg Roedel <joerg.roedel@amd.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/6] get rid of on-stack dma buffers
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011 15:02:48 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <AANLkTinWhwX1ZONGi-JwPr-oG565bKSsF0-UvJRh+4Cp@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1300800904.3290.7.camel@mulgrave.site>

2011/3/22 James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@hansenpartnership.com>:
> On Mon, 2011-03-21 at 22:03 +0100, Florian Mickler wrote:
>> On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:26:43 -0400
>> Andy Walls <awalls@md.metrocast.net> wrote:
>>
>> > Florian Mickler <florian@mickler.org> wrote:
>>
>> To be blunt, I'm not shure I fully understand the requirements myself.
>> But as far as I grasped it, the main problem is that we need memory
>> which the processor can see as soon as the device has scribbled upon
>> it. (think caches and the like)
>>
>> Somewhere down the line, the buffer to usb_control_msg get's to be
>> a parameter to dma_map_single which is described as part of
>> the DMA API in Documentation/DMA-API.txt
>>
>> The main point I filter out from that is that the memory has to begin
>> exactly at a cache line boundary...
>
> The API will round up so that the correct region covers the API.
> However, if you have other structures packed into the space (as very
> often happens on stack), you get cache line interference in the CPU if
> they get accessed:  The act of accessing an adjacent object pulls in
> cache above your object and destroys DMA coherence.  This is the
> principle reason why DMA to stack is a bad idea.

Thanks, this was the missing piece of information to make sense of
 why it's bad for stack memory to be part of this.

>
>> I guess (not verified), that the dma api takes sufficient precautions
>> to abort the dma transfer if a timeout happens.  So freeing _should_
>> not be an issue. (At least, I would expect big fat warnings everywhere
>> if that were the case)

I did mean s/dma api/usb_control_msg/ in the above paragraph. As that is the
 ''dma api'' these drivers are using... sorry for the confusion there...

>
> No, it doesn't take any precautions like this.  the DMA API is just
> mapping (possibly via an IOMMU).  If the transfer times out, that's done
> in the DMA engine of the card, and must be cleaned up by the driver and
> unmapped.

ok.

> The general rule though is never DMA to stack.  On some processors, the
> way stack is allocated can actually make this not work.
>
> James

thanks,
Flo

p.s.: hope this message get's through to the list... I am on the road
at the moment,
 so I'm not shure that there won't be any html in it again :(