Neophyte questions about PCIe

[Bjorn Helgaas]

On Mon, Mar 13, 2017 at 10:57:48PM +0100, Mason wrote:
> On 13/03/2017 22:40, Bjorn Helgaas wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, Mar 11, 2017 at 11:57:56AM +0100, Mason wrote:
> >
> >> On 10/03/2017 18:49, Mason wrote:
> >> 
> >>> static void tango_pcie_bar_quirk(struct pci_dev *dev)
> >>> {
> >>> 	struct pci_bus *bus = dev->bus;
> >>>
> >>> 	printk("%s: bus=%d devfn=%d\n", __func__, bus->number, dev->devfn);
> >>>
> >>>         pci_write_config_dword(dev, PCI_BASE_ADDRESS_0, 0x80000004);
> >>> }
> >>> DECLARE_PCI_FIXUP_FINAL(0x1105, PCI_ANY_ID, tango_pcie_bar_quirk);
> >>
> >> And this is where the elusive "black magic" happens.
> >>
> >> Is it "safe" to configure a BAR behind Linux's back?
> > 
> > No.  Linux maintains a struct resource for every BAR.  This quirk
> > makes the BAR out of sync with the resource, so Linux no longer has an
> > accurate idea of what bus address space is consumed and what is
> > available.
> 
> Even when Linux is not able to map the BAR, since it's too
> large to fit in the mem window?

I don't think there's much point in advertising a BAR that isn't
really a BAR and making assumptions about how Linux will handle it.
So my answer remains "No, I don't think it's a good idea to change a
BAR behind the back of the PCI core.  It might work now, but there's
no guarantee it will keep working."

> > Normally a BAR is for mapping device registers into PCI bus address
> > space.  If this BAR controls how the RC forwards PCI DMA transactions
> > to RAM, then it's not really a BAR and you should prevent Linux from
> > seeing it as a BAR.  You could do this by special-casing it in the
> > config accessor so reads return 0 and writes are dropped.  Then you
> > could write the register in your host bridge driver safely because the
> > PCI core would think the BAR is not implemented.
> 
> In fact, that's what I used to do in a previous version :-)
> 
> I'd like to push support for this PCIe controller upstream.
> 
> Is the code I posted on the right track?
> Maybe I can post a RFC patch tomorrow?

No need to ask before posting a patch :)