dma_alloc_coherent and cache?

[Arnd Bergmann]

On Tuesday 15 April 2014 14:01:39 Lee Essen wrote:
> > On 15 Apr 2014, at 12:43, Arnd Bergmann <arnd at arndb.de> wrote:
> > 
> > dma_alloc_coherent() is a wrapper around a device-specific allocator,
> > based on the dma_map_ops implementation. The default allocator
> > from arm_dma_ops gives you uncached, buffered memory. It is expected
> > that the driver uses a barrier (which is implied by readl/writel
> > but not __raw_readl/__raw_writel or readl_relaxed/writel_relaxed)
> > to ensure the write buffers are flushed.
> > 
> > If the machine sets arm_coherent_dma_ops rather than arm_dma_ops,
> > the memory will be cacheable, as it's assumed that the hardware
> > is set up for cache-coherent DMAs.
> 
> Hi,
> 
> The driver writes to the descriptor and then uses wmb() before enabling DMA. The descriptor is in dma_alloc_coherent() space, but the enable is a writel().

Ok

> > 
> > Can you post a link to the source code?
> > 
> >   Arnd
> 
> The code is available here:
> 
> http://www.nowonline.co.uk/scratch/le_netdev.c
> 
> It hangs consistently when it executes the txq_enable() on line 1280. Occasionally I see a corrupt packet on the wire, but mostly it's just a hang. If I uncomment all the printk's then it generally gets 20 or 30 packets out before it freezes.
> 


Unfortunately I don't see an obvious mistake with the DMA handling there,
I would try looking somewhere other than the dma code first. What
kind of freeze do you see? Does the entire machine hang, or is it
just the network interface that stops sending packets?

	Arnd