0001 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
0002
0003 =====================================
0004 Asynchronous Transfers/Transforms API
0005 =====================================
0006
0007 .. Contents
0008
0009 1. INTRODUCTION
0010
0011 2 GENEALOGY
0012
0013 3 USAGE
0014 3.1 General format of the API
0015 3.2 Supported operations
0016 3.3 Descriptor management
0017 3.4 When does the operation execute?
0018 3.5 When does the operation complete?
0019 3.6 Constraints
0020 3.7 Example
0021
0022 4 DMAENGINE DRIVER DEVELOPER NOTES
0023 4.1 Conformance points
0024 4.2 "My application needs exclusive control of hardware channels"
0025
0026 5 SOURCE
0027
0028 1. Introduction
0029 ===============
0030
0031 The async_tx API provides methods for describing a chain of asynchronous
0032 bulk memory transfers/transforms with support for inter-transactional
0033 dependencies. It is implemented as a dmaengine client that smooths over
0034 the details of different hardware offload engine implementations. Code
0035 that is written to the API can optimize for asynchronous operation and
0036 the API will fit the chain of operations to the available offload
0037 resources.
0038
0039 2.Genealogy
0040 ===========
0041
0042 The API was initially designed to offload the memory copy and
0043 xor-parity-calculations of the md-raid5 driver using the offload engines
0044 present in the Intel(R) Xscale series of I/O processors. It also built
0045 on the 'dmaengine' layer developed for offloading memory copies in the
0046 network stack using Intel(R) I/OAT engines. The following design
0047 features surfaced as a result:
0048
0049 1. implicit synchronous path: users of the API do not need to know if
0050 the platform they are running on has offload capabilities. The
0051 operation will be offloaded when an engine is available and carried out
0052 in software otherwise.
0053 2. cross channel dependency chains: the API allows a chain of dependent
0054 operations to be submitted, like xor->copy->xor in the raid5 case. The
0055 API automatically handles cases where the transition from one operation
0056 to another implies a hardware channel switch.
0057 3. dmaengine extensions to support multiple clients and operation types
0058 beyond 'memcpy'
0059
0060 3. Usage
0061 ========
0062
0063 3.1 General format of the API
0064 -----------------------------
0065
0066 ::
0067
0068 struct dma_async_tx_descriptor *
0069 async_<operation>(<op specific parameters>, struct async_submit ctl *submit)
0070
0071 3.2 Supported operations
0072 ------------------------
0073
0074 ======== ====================================================================
0075 memcpy memory copy between a source and a destination buffer
0076 memset fill a destination buffer with a byte value
0077 xor xor a series of source buffers and write the result to a
0078 destination buffer
0079 xor_val xor a series of source buffers and set a flag if the
0080 result is zero. The implementation attempts to prevent
0081 writes to memory
0082 pq generate the p+q (raid6 syndrome) from a series of source buffers
0083 pq_val validate that a p and or q buffer are in sync with a given series of
0084 sources
0085 datap (raid6_datap_recov) recover a raid6 data block and the p block
0086 from the given sources
0087 2data (raid6_2data_recov) recover 2 raid6 data blocks from the given
0088 sources
0089 ======== ====================================================================
0090
0091 3.3 Descriptor management
0092 -------------------------
0093
0094 The return value is non-NULL and points to a 'descriptor' when the operation
0095 has been queued to execute asynchronously. Descriptors are recycled
0096 resources, under control of the offload engine driver, to be reused as
0097 operations complete. When an application needs to submit a chain of
0098 operations it must guarantee that the descriptor is not automatically recycled
0099 before the dependency is submitted. This requires that all descriptors be
0100 acknowledged by the application before the offload engine driver is allowed to
0101 recycle (or free) the descriptor. A descriptor can be acked by one of the
0102 following methods:
0103
0104 1. setting the ASYNC_TX_ACK flag if no child operations are to be submitted
0105 2. submitting an unacknowledged descriptor as a dependency to another
0106 async_tx call will implicitly set the acknowledged state.
0107 3. calling async_tx_ack() on the descriptor.
0108
0109 3.4 When does the operation execute?
0110 ------------------------------------
0111
0112 Operations do not immediately issue after return from the
0113 async_<operation> call. Offload engine drivers batch operations to
0114 improve performance by reducing the number of mmio cycles needed to
0115 manage the channel. Once a driver-specific threshold is met the driver
0116 automatically issues pending operations. An application can force this
0117 event by calling async_tx_issue_pending_all(). This operates on all
0118 channels since the application has no knowledge of channel to operation
0119 mapping.
0120
0121 3.5 When does the operation complete?
0122 -------------------------------------
0123
0124 There are two methods for an application to learn about the completion
0125 of an operation.
0126
0127 1. Call dma_wait_for_async_tx(). This call causes the CPU to spin while
0128 it polls for the completion of the operation. It handles dependency
0129 chains and issuing pending operations.
0130 2. Specify a completion callback. The callback routine runs in tasklet
0131 context if the offload engine driver supports interrupts, or it is
0132 called in application context if the operation is carried out
0133 synchronously in software. The callback can be set in the call to
0134 async_<operation>, or when the application needs to submit a chain of
0135 unknown length it can use the async_trigger_callback() routine to set a
0136 completion interrupt/callback at the end of the chain.
0137
0138 3.6 Constraints
0139 ---------------
0140
0141 1. Calls to async_<operation> are not permitted in IRQ context. Other
0142 contexts are permitted provided constraint #2 is not violated.
0143 2. Completion callback routines cannot submit new operations. This
0144 results in recursion in the synchronous case and spin_locks being
0145 acquired twice in the asynchronous case.
0146
0147 3.7 Example
0148 -----------
0149
0150 Perform a xor->copy->xor operation where each operation depends on the
0151 result from the previous operation::
0152
0153 void callback(void *param)
0154 {
0155 struct completion *cmp = param;
0156
0157 complete(cmp);
0158 }
0159
0160 void run_xor_copy_xor(struct page **xor_srcs,
0161 int xor_src_cnt,
0162 struct page *xor_dest,
0163 size_t xor_len,
0164 struct page *copy_src,
0165 struct page *copy_dest,
0166 size_t copy_len)
0167 {
0168 struct dma_async_tx_descriptor *tx;
0169 addr_conv_t addr_conv[xor_src_cnt];
0170 struct async_submit_ctl submit;
0171 addr_conv_t addr_conv[NDISKS];
0172 struct completion cmp;
0173
0174 init_async_submit(&submit, ASYNC_TX_XOR_DROP_DST, NULL, NULL, NULL,
0175 addr_conv);
0176 tx = async_xor(xor_dest, xor_srcs, 0, xor_src_cnt, xor_len, &submit)
0177
0178 submit->depend_tx = tx;
0179 tx = async_memcpy(copy_dest, copy_src, 0, 0, copy_len, &submit);
0180
0181 init_completion(&cmp);
0182 init_async_submit(&submit, ASYNC_TX_XOR_DROP_DST | ASYNC_TX_ACK, tx,
0183 callback, &cmp, addr_conv);
0184 tx = async_xor(xor_dest, xor_srcs, 0, xor_src_cnt, xor_len, &submit);
0185
0186 async_tx_issue_pending_all();
0187
0188 wait_for_completion(&cmp);
0189 }
0190
0191 See include/linux/async_tx.h for more information on the flags. See the
0192 ops_run_* and ops_complete_* routines in drivers/md/raid5.c for more
0193 implementation examples.
0194
0195 4. Driver Development Notes
0196 ===========================
0197
0198 4.1 Conformance points
0199 ----------------------
0200
0201 There are a few conformance points required in dmaengine drivers to
0202 accommodate assumptions made by applications using the async_tx API:
0203
0204 1. Completion callbacks are expected to happen in tasklet context
0205 2. dma_async_tx_descriptor fields are never manipulated in IRQ context
0206 3. Use async_tx_run_dependencies() in the descriptor clean up path to
0207 handle submission of dependent operations
0208
0209 4.2 "My application needs exclusive control of hardware channels"
0210 -----------------------------------------------------------------
0211
0212 Primarily this requirement arises from cases where a DMA engine driver
0213 is being used to support device-to-memory operations. A channel that is
0214 performing these operations cannot, for many platform specific reasons,
0215 be shared. For these cases the dma_request_channel() interface is
0216 provided.
0217
0218 The interface is::
0219
0220 struct dma_chan *dma_request_channel(dma_cap_mask_t mask,
0221 dma_filter_fn filter_fn,
0222 void *filter_param);
0223
0224 Where dma_filter_fn is defined as::
0225
0226 typedef bool (*dma_filter_fn)(struct dma_chan *chan, void *filter_param);
0227
0228 When the optional 'filter_fn' parameter is set to NULL
0229 dma_request_channel simply returns the first channel that satisfies the
0230 capability mask. Otherwise, when the mask parameter is insufficient for
0231 specifying the necessary channel, the filter_fn routine can be used to
0232 disposition the available channels in the system. The filter_fn routine
0233 is called once for each free channel in the system. Upon seeing a
0234 suitable channel filter_fn returns DMA_ACK which flags that channel to
0235 be the return value from dma_request_channel. A channel allocated via
0236 this interface is exclusive to the caller, until dma_release_channel()
0237 is called.
0238
0239 The DMA_PRIVATE capability flag is used to tag dma devices that should
0240 not be used by the general-purpose allocator. It can be set at
0241 initialization time if it is known that a channel will always be
0242 private. Alternatively, it is set when dma_request_channel() finds an
0243 unused "public" channel.
0244
0245 A couple caveats to note when implementing a driver and consumer:
0246
0247 1. Once a channel has been privately allocated it will no longer be
0248 considered by the general-purpose allocator even after a call to
0249 dma_release_channel().
0250 2. Since capabilities are specified at the device level a dma_device
0251 with multiple channels will either have all channels public, or all
0252 channels private.
0253
0254 5. Source
0255 ---------
0256
0257 include/linux/dmaengine.h:
0258 core header file for DMA drivers and api users
0259 drivers/dma/dmaengine.c:
0260 offload engine channel management routines
0261 drivers/dma/:
0262 location for offload engine drivers
0263 include/linux/async_tx.h:
0264 core header file for the async_tx api
0265 crypto/async_tx/async_tx.c:
0266 async_tx interface to dmaengine and common code
0267 crypto/async_tx/async_memcpy.c:
0268 copy offload
0269 crypto/async_tx/async_xor.c:
0270 xor and xor zero sum offload