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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/DMA-API.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/DMA-API.txt | 106 |
1 files changed, 106 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/DMA-API.txt b/Documentation/DMA-API.txt index 2a3fcc55e981..d9aa43d78bcc 100644 --- a/Documentation/DMA-API.txt +++ b/Documentation/DMA-API.txt @@ -609,3 +609,109 @@ size is the size (and should be a page-sized multiple). The return value will be either a pointer to the processor virtual address of the memory, or an error (via PTR_ERR()) if any part of the region is occupied. + +Part III - Debug drivers use of the DMA-API +------------------------------------------- + +The DMA-API as described above as some constraints. DMA addresses must be +released with the corresponding function with the same size for example. With +the advent of hardware IOMMUs it becomes more and more important that drivers +do not violate those constraints. In the worst case such a violation can +result in data corruption up to destroyed filesystems. + +To debug drivers and find bugs in the usage of the DMA-API checking code can +be compiled into the kernel which will tell the developer about those +violations. If your architecture supports it you can select the "Enable +debugging of DMA-API usage" option in your kernel configuration. Enabling this +option has a performance impact. Do not enable it in production kernels. + +If you boot the resulting kernel will contain code which does some bookkeeping +about what DMA memory was allocated for which device. If this code detects an +error it prints a warning message with some details into your kernel log. An +example warning message may look like this: + +------------[ cut here ]------------ +WARNING: at /data2/repos/linux-2.6-iommu/lib/dma-debug.c:448 + check_unmap+0x203/0x490() +Hardware name: +forcedeth 0000:00:08.0: DMA-API: device driver frees DMA memory with wrong + function [device address=0x00000000640444be] [size=66 bytes] [mapped as +single] [unmapped as page] +Modules linked in: nfsd exportfs bridge stp llc r8169 +Pid: 0, comm: swapper Tainted: G W 2.6.28-dmatest-09289-g8bb99c0 #1 +Call Trace: + <IRQ> [<ffffffff80240b22>] warn_slowpath+0xf2/0x130 + [<ffffffff80647b70>] _spin_unlock+0x10/0x30 + [<ffffffff80537e75>] usb_hcd_link_urb_to_ep+0x75/0xc0 + [<ffffffff80647c22>] _spin_unlock_irqrestore+0x12/0x40 + [<ffffffff8055347f>] ohci_urb_enqueue+0x19f/0x7c0 + [<ffffffff80252f96>] queue_work+0x56/0x60 + [<ffffffff80237e10>] enqueue_task_fair+0x20/0x50 + [<ffffffff80539279>] usb_hcd_submit_urb+0x379/0xbc0 + [<ffffffff803b78c3>] cpumask_next_and+0x23/0x40 + [<ffffffff80235177>] find_busiest_group+0x207/0x8a0 + [<ffffffff8064784f>] _spin_lock_irqsave+0x1f/0x50 + [<ffffffff803c7ea3>] check_unmap+0x203/0x490 + [<ffffffff803c8259>] debug_dma_unmap_page+0x49/0x50 + [<ffffffff80485f26>] nv_tx_done_optimized+0xc6/0x2c0 + [<ffffffff80486c13>] nv_nic_irq_optimized+0x73/0x2b0 + [<ffffffff8026df84>] handle_IRQ_event+0x34/0x70 + [<ffffffff8026ffe9>] handle_edge_irq+0xc9/0x150 + [<ffffffff8020e3ab>] do_IRQ+0xcb/0x1c0 + [<ffffffff8020c093>] ret_from_intr+0x0/0xa + <EOI> <4>---[ end trace f6435a98e2a38c0e ]--- + +The driver developer can find the driver and the device including a stacktrace +of the DMA-API call which caused this warning. + +Per default only the first error will result in a warning message. All other +errors will only silently counted. This limitation exist to prevent the code +from flooding your kernel log. To support debugging a device driver this can +be disabled via debugfs. See the debugfs interface documentation below for +details. + +The debugfs directory for the DMA-API debugging code is called dma-api/. In +this directory the following files can currently be found: + + dma-api/all_errors This file contains a numeric value. If this + value is not equal to zero the debugging code + will print a warning for every error it finds + into the kernel log. Be carefull with this + option. It can easily flood your logs. + + dma-api/disabled This read-only file contains the character 'Y' + if the debugging code is disabled. This can + happen when it runs out of memory or if it was + disabled at boot time + + dma-api/error_count This file is read-only and shows the total + numbers of errors found. + + dma-api/num_errors The number in this file shows how many + warnings will be printed to the kernel log + before it stops. This number is initialized to + one at system boot and be set by writing into + this file + + dma-api/min_free_entries + This read-only file can be read to get the + minimum number of free dma_debug_entries the + allocator has ever seen. If this value goes + down to zero the code will disable itself + because it is not longer reliable. + + dma-api/num_free_entries + The current number of free dma_debug_entries + in the allocator. + +If you have this code compiled into your kernel it will be enabled by default. +If you want to boot without the bookkeeping anyway you can provide +'dma_debug=off' as a boot parameter. This will disable DMA-API debugging. +Notice that you can not enable it again at runtime. You have to reboot to do +so. + +When the code disables itself at runtime this is most likely because it ran +out of dma_debug_entries. These entries are preallocated at boot. The number +of preallocated entries is defined per architecture. If it is too low for you +boot with 'dma_debug_entries=<your_desired_number>' to overwrite the +architectural default. |