On 03/01/2016 01:40 PM, Robert Richter wrote: > On 29.02.16 15:17:53, Laura Abbott wrote: >> On 02/29/2016 05:30 AM, Marc Zyngier wrote: >>> On 29/02/16 12:25, Robert Richter wrote: >>>> On 29.02.16 10:46:49, Marc Zyngier wrote: >>>>> On 25/02/16 11:02, Robert Richter wrote: >>>>>> From: Robert Richter <rrichter@xxxxxxxxxx> >>>>>> >>>>>> This series implements the use of CMA for allocation of large device >>>>>> tables for the arm64 gicv3 interrupt controller. >>>>>> >>>>>> There are 2 patches, the first is for early activation of cma, which >>>>>> needs to be done before interrupt initialization to make it available >>>>>> to the gicv3. The second implements the use of CMA to allocate >>>>>> gicv3-its device tables. >>>>>> >>>>>> This solves the problem where mem allocation is limited to 4MB. A >>>>>> previous patch sent to the list to address this that instead increases >>>>>> FORCE_MAX_ZONEORDER becomes obsolete. >>>>> >>>>> I think you're looking at the problem the wrong way. Instead of going >>>>> through CMA directly, I'd rather go through the normal DMA API >>>>> (dma_alloc_coherent), which can itself try CMA (should it be enabled). >>>>> >>>>> That will give you all the benefit of the CMA allocation, and also make >>>>> the driver more robust. I meant to do this for a while, and never found >>>>> the time. Any chance you could have a look? >>>> >>>> I was considering this first, and in fact the backend used is the >>>> same. The problem is that irq initialization is much more earlier than >>>> standard device probing. The gic even does not have its own struct >>>> device and is not initialized like devices are. This makes the whole >>>> dma_alloc_coherent() approach not feasable, at least this would >>>> require introducing and using a dev struct for the gic. But still this >>>> migth not work as it could be too early during boot. I also think >>>> there were reasons not implementing the gic as a device. >>>> >>>> I was following more the approach of iommu/mmu implementations which >>>> use dma_alloc_from_contiguous() directly. I think this is more close >>>> to the device tables for its. >>>> >>>> Code path of dma_alloc_coherent(): >>>> >>>> dma_alloc_coherent() >>>> v >>>> dma_alloc_attrs() <---- Requires get_dma_ops(dev) != NULL >>>> v >>>> dma_alloc_from_coherent() >>>> v >>>> ... >>>> >>>> The difference it that dma_alloc_coherent() tries cma first and then >>>> proceeds with ops->alloc() (which is __dma_alloc() for arm64) if >>>> dma_alloc_from_coherent() fails. In my implementation I am directly >>>> using dma_alloc_from_coherent() and only for large mem sizes. >>>> >>>> So both approaches uses finally the same allocation, but for gicv3-its >>>> the generic dma framework is not used since the gic is not implemented >>>> as a device. >>> >>> And that's what I propose we change. >>> >>> The core GIC itself indeed isn't a device, and I'm not proposing we make >>> it a device (yet). But the ITS is only used much later in the game, and >>> we could move the table allocation to a different time (when the actual >>> domains are allocated, for example...). Then, we'd have a set of devices >>> available, and the DMA API is our friend again. >>> >>> M. >>> >> >> I did the first drop of CMA in the DMA APIs for arm64. When adding that, >> it was decided to disallow dma_alloc calls without a valid device pointer >> (c666e8d5cae7 "arm64: Warn on NULL device structure for dma APIs") so >> if the GIC code wants to use dma_alloc it _must_ have a proper device. >> >> If the device shift still isn't feasible, a better approach might be >> what powerpc did for kvm (arch/powerpc/kvm/book3s_hv_builtin.c). This >> calls the cma_alloc functions directly and skips trying to work around >> the DMA layer. >> >> With either option, I don't think the early initialization approach >> proposed is great. If we want CMA early, it's probably be just to >> explicitly initialize it early rather than trying to do it from >> two places. Something like: > > I wasn't sure whether this works for all archs if called directly in > mm_init(). If so, ok your proposed change would be better, though a > stub for !CONFIG_CMA needs to be added. Any comment on the change > below as a replacement for patch #1? > > On the other side, if we use device enablement for its, then early cma > enablement is not needed anymore. Will check how that could work. Hmm this reminds me of commit 080fe2068e1c7f19f5 where I've exposed alloc_contig_range() and related stuff for allowing gigantic page allocations without full CONFIG_CMA. Could this perhaps be generalized for this case? Would alloc_contig_range() without the CMA pageblock reservations be enough for you as well? Maybe then the "early CMA initialization" problem would go away. -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@xxxxxxxxx";> email@xxxxxxxxx </a>