[RFC 2/3] mailbox: Introduce a new common API

[Jassi Brar]

Hi Suman,

On 9 May 2013 06:55, Suman Anna <s-anna at ti.com> wrote:

>> so it can't be driven by the controller. We could make it a Kconfig option.
>> What do you suggest?
>
> I am saying controller/link because they are the ones that knows how the
> physical transport is, and it may vary from one to another. I would
> think that the client dependencies would become a subset of this.
> Kconfig option is fine, but we have to think about the best way of
> representing it from a multi-platform kernel support perspective.
>
Actually it has more to do with clients and less with multiplatform.
Even on single platform the client that needs biggest buffer will
rule. Ditto on multi-platform.
Anyways I get your idea. I'll put a note there to revisit once number
of active clients increase on the platform.


>> As I said the API shouldn't keep internal copies of a client's
>> requests - it will only kill zero-copy use-cases while adding
>> complexity to the core.
>
> This is the reason I was suggesting the nature be dictated by a
> controller, rather than 1 design in core code mandating a certain usage.
> The client & controller together would know the functional integration
> aspect.
>
>> Since it already works fine for OMAP, I request we leave it as such
>> for now at least.
>
> OK, we should make a note of it in some documentation.
>
OK, will do. Thanks.


>>> IMHO. It's calling ipc_links_register twice on the same controller. Idea
>>> was that the API would distinguish different controllers, not the same
>>> one. Also, see the above example if you were to treat a link as Rx or Tx
>>> only (functional behavior differences even though the link is exactly
>>> the same type).
>>>
>> Why is calling ipc_links_register() twice, for a controller with 2
>> classes of links, a problem ?
>
> It will be inelegant, once you start maintaining the list of
> ipc_controllers in the core code. You would have to search all the
> controllers in the list with the matching name, and their links. You
> will need to define multiple controller specific controller structures
> and copy most of the elements from the actual h/w device into the
> containing ipc_controller definition. As you said, the clients deal with
> the links themselves, so making the ops part of the ipc_link definition
> makes it easier on the controller implementations. You are anyway
> caching the ops in ipc_chan (per link) and that is what you are using in
> the core code. Majority of the time, you would be using the same ops for
> all the links, but this gives the flexibility to links. You can avoid
> having multiple controller instance denoting the h/w block, just because
> of the difference in links behavior.
>
I don't see it as an issue, it's just how the code is designed on the
principle that the API works only on links, not controllers. Let us
wait for the driver of such a controller to show up. It should be easy
to change if we see the need.


>>
>> And, No, the API need not know if the link is "RX" or "TX", which is
>> purely a logical function.
>>
>> Please do tell me which controller physically limits its links to do
>> only "RX" or only "TX"?  It's just the platform's firmware that
>> dictates who sends and who receives on which link, thereby giving the
>> illusion of a link being a "RX" or "TX" capable only.
>> Even if some h/w limits do exist on links of some controller, still
>> the API shouldn't try to discern a "RX" from a "TX" link. When a
>> client knows which link to open, it will also know if it should read
>> or write to it - this assumption already holds true. If the client
>> writes on a link that it's supposed to listen to remote on, no amount
>> of policing by the API could help.
>>
>> Even if the API tries to differentiate "RX" and "TX" links, the
>> knowledge must come from a client (it's driven by the protocol on the
>> platform), and not the controller because each of its links are
>> physically equally capable to do RX or TX on each end.
>
> The API never differentiates, but the controller implementation has to.
> From a controller driver implementation perspective, you still have to
> make sure that no client is calling an op on which it is not supposed
> to. When you have a mixture like this, a common code would include some
> dead paths for certain links.
>
No, please. The controller driver should not implement any policy (of
allowing/disallowing requests). It should simply try to do as
directed. If the client screwed up even after getting info from
platform_data/DT, let it suffer.


>>>> Yes, I have 2 types of controllers and I already thought about
>>>> multiple controllers in a platform.
>>>>  What do you expect to do in controller startup/shutdown? Since the
>>>> API works on individual links, not the controllers, when would it call
>>>> controller_start() and controller_shutdown()?  The ipc_link's
>>>> startup/shutdown are already non-atomic, if the controller needs any
>>>> setup it could do it in the first link's startup and teardown in the
>>>> last link's shutdown. Not to forget the resources lke IRQ are usually
>>>> per Link which should be acquired/released upon link's use/idle.
>>>>  While writing the OMAP2 controller driver, did I miss any controller
>>>> startup/shutdown ?
>>>
>>> It just delineates the code better, and has flexibility later on to
>>> extend any controller ops or exposing new controller-specific API. The
>>> controller start and stop will be called in the same function as
>>> ipc_request_channel.
>>>
>> Already one call ipc_link_ops.startup() reaches the controller upon
>> ipc_request_channel.
>>
>> Do you mean ?
>>        ipc_con_ops.startup();
>>        ipc_link_ops.startup();
>
> Yes.
>
And let the controller startup()/shutdown() upon every
link_request/release?  If no, then the ipc_con_ops.startup() will be
really executed only upon probe or resume, which is controller
driver's internal matter.

BTW, I have seen my 2 controllers, OMAP, PL320 and read the dbx500
driver. Unsurprisingly none of these have any use for what you call a
special ipc_con_ops.startup().  Lets say if the call were there, what
would the OMAP put in it?


>>> Yeah, the pm_runtime_enable cannot be called twice when mailbox is
>>> invoked from multiple clients on separate links, so there has to a
>>> controller-level logic/ref-counting for that. The clocking for us is on
>>> the controller.
>>>
>> No.  You could call pm_runtime_enable/disable any number of times as
>> long as they are balanced. The core does refcounting.
>
> Exactly, as long as they are balanced. I have two clients dealing with
> two remotes (using two links) so pm_runtime_enable on the h/w block
> needs to be called only when the first one comes in.
>
Actually you just gave another reason why the API messing around with
controller's power state is a bad idea.
See how mailbox_startup() tries to balance mbox->ops->startup() and
mailbox_fini() the mbox->ops->shutdown()  That's very fragile and the
cause of imbalance between rpm enable/disable, unless your clients are
buggy.

Regards,
-Jassi