Re: [PATCH 5/9] soc: apple: Add RTKit IPC library

[Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzk@kernel.org>]

On 02/04/2022 15:51, Sven Peter wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 23, 2022, at 12:19, Krzysztof Kozlowski wrote:
>> On 21/03/2022 17:50, Sven Peter wrote:
>>> Apple SoCs such as the M1 come with multiple embedded co-processors
>>> running proprietary firmware. Communication with those is established
>>> over a simple mailbox using the RTKit IPC protocol.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Sven Peter <sven@svenpeter.dev>
>>> ---
>>>  drivers/soc/apple/Kconfig          |  13 +
>>>  drivers/soc/apple/Makefile         |   3 +
>>>  drivers/soc/apple/rtkit-crashlog.c | 147 +++++
>>>  drivers/soc/apple/rtkit-internal.h |  76 +++
>>>  drivers/soc/apple/rtkit.c          | 842 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>>  include/linux/soc/apple/rtkit.h    | 203 +++++++
>>>  6 files changed, 1284 insertions(+)
>>
>> Isn't this some implementation of a mailbox? If so, it should be in
>> drivers/mailbox. Please don't put all stuff in soc/apple, that's not how
>> Linux is organized. To drivers/soc usually we put drivers which do not
>> fit regular subsystems.
>>
> 
> I put this into soc/apple because I don't think it fits within the mailbox
> framework very well.
> (It actually uses the mailbox framework for the actual communication
> with the hardware with a driver that's already upstream.)
> 
> Essentially, the mailbox subsystem provides a common API to send and
> receive messages over indepedent hardware channels and devicetree bindings
> to describe the relationship between those channels and other drivers.
> 
> One of the features that doesn't really fit is that we need to be able
> to start, shutdown and re-start these co-processors. The NVMe driver
> actually doesn't need to send/receive any messages except those required
> to setup the common syslog/crashlog/etc. interfaces.
> The mailbox framework would have to be extended to support these specific
> use cases.
> 
> Another thing that doesn't fit is the memory management: These co-processors
> sometimes need shared memory buffers to e.g. send syslog messages.
> They always request these buffers with an IPC message but then there are
> different possibilities:
> 
> 	- For some processor the DMA API can just be used and an IOVA must be
> 	  sent back. For NVMe these buffers must additionally be allowed in this
> 	  SART address filter.
> 	- At least one other processor (SMC) does not request such buffers but
> 	  instead just sends a pointer into MMIO space and the buffer must be
> 	  accessed using readl/writel. This MMIO memory region is used for
> 	  both the common buffers (syslog etc.) and for the actual shared buffers
> 	  used for communication, such that the resource would have to be shared
> 	  across drivers.
> 	- And yet another coprocessor (for the display controller) requests some
> 	  buffers with an already existing IOVA that than need to be mapped
> 	  specifically inside the IOMMU.
> 
> Each of these co-processors also provides a single function and most
> of them don't even have different endpoints. And even those that do (DCP) will
> just become a single driver since all those endpoints are very much related.
> 
> While it's not impossible to do all that by extending and forcing this into the
> mailbox framework at lest I think that it doesn't fit very well and would just
> create unneccesarry impedance.

Thanks for explanation. I don't know the mailbox framework well enough
to advise you, so I don't mind keeping it in current location (drivers/soc).

Best regards,
Krzysztof