[RFC] Inter-processor Mailboxes Drivers

[Meador Inge]

On 02/14/2011 04:01 AM, Jamie Iles wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 03:19:51PM -0600, Meador Inge wrote:
>>      1. Hardware specific bits somewhere under '.../arch/*'.  Drivers
>>         for the MPIC message registers on Power and OMAP4 mailboxes, for
>>         example.
>>      2. A higher level driver under '.../drivers/mailbox/*'.  That the
>>         pieces in (1) would register with.  This piece would expose the
>>         main kernel API.
>>      3. Userspace interfaces for accessing the mailboxes.  A
>>         '/dev/mailbox1', '/dev/mailbox2', etc... mapping, for example.
>
> How about using virtio for all of this and having the mailbox as a
> notification/message passing driver for the virtio backend?  There are
> already virtio console and network drivers that could be useful for the
> userspace part of it.  drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c might be a good
> starting point if you thought there was some mileage in this approach.

To be honest, I am not that familiar with 'virtio', but I will take a 
look.  Thanks for the pointer.  Maybe Hollis can speak to this idea more.

> Jamie
>


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Meador Inge     | meador_inge AT mentor.com
Mentor Embedded | http://www.mentor.com/embedded-software