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author | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org> | 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -0700 |
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committer | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org> | 2005-04-16 15:20:36 -0700 |
commit | 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 (patch) | |
tree | 0bba044c4ce775e45a88a51686b5d9f90697ea9d /Documentation/driver-model/porting.txt | |
download | linux-1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2.tar.bz2 |
Linux-2.6.12-rc2v2.6.12-rc2
Initial git repository build. I'm not bothering with the full history,
even though we have it. We can create a separate "historical" git
archive of that later if we want to, and in the meantime it's about
3.2GB when imported into git - space that would just make the early
git days unnecessarily complicated, when we don't have a lot of good
infrastructure for it.
Let it rip!
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/driver-model/porting.txt')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/driver-model/porting.txt | 445 |
1 files changed, 445 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/driver-model/porting.txt b/Documentation/driver-model/porting.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..ff2fef2107f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/driver-model/porting.txt @@ -0,0 +1,445 @@ + +Porting Drivers to the New Driver Model + +Patrick Mochel + +7 January 2003 + + +Overview + +Please refer to Documentation/driver-model/*.txt for definitions of +various driver types and concepts. + +Most of the work of porting devices drivers to the new model happens +at the bus driver layer. This was intentional, to minimize the +negative effect on kernel drivers, and to allow a gradual transition +of bus drivers. + +In a nutshell, the driver model consists of a set of objects that can +be embedded in larger, bus-specific objects. Fields in these generic +objects can replace fields in the bus-specific objects. + +The generic objects must be registered with the driver model core. By +doing so, they will exported via the sysfs filesystem. sysfs can be +mounted by doing + + # mount -t sysfs sysfs /sys + + + +The Process + +Step 0: Read include/linux/device.h for object and function definitions. + +Step 1: Registering the bus driver. + + +- Define a struct bus_type for the bus driver. + +struct bus_type pci_bus_type = { + .name = "pci", +}; + + +- Register the bus type. + This should be done in the initialization function for the bus type, + which is usually the module_init(), or equivalent, function. + +static int __init pci_driver_init(void) +{ + return bus_register(&pci_bus_type); +} + +subsys_initcall(pci_driver_init); + + + The bus type may be unregistered (if the bus driver may be compiled + as a module) by doing: + + bus_unregister(&pci_bus_type); + + +- Export the bus type for others to use. + + Other code may wish to reference the bus type, so declare it in a + shared header file and export the symbol. + +From include/linux/pci.h: + +extern struct bus_type pci_bus_type; + + +From file the above code appears in: + +EXPORT_SYMBOL(pci_bus_type); + + + +- This will cause the bus to show up in /sys/bus/pci/ with two + subdirectories: 'devices' and 'drivers'. + +# tree -d /sys/bus/pci/ +/sys/bus/pci/ +|-- devices +`-- drivers + + + +Step 2: Registering Devices. + +struct device represents a single device. It mainly contains metadata +describing the relationship the device has to other entities. + + +- Embedd a struct device in the bus-specific device type. + + +struct pci_dev { + ... + struct device dev; /* Generic device interface */ + ... +}; + + It is recommended that the generic device not be the first item in + the struct to discourage programmers from doing mindless casts + between the object types. Instead macros, or inline functions, + should be created to convert from the generic object type. + + +#define to_pci_dev(n) container_of(n, struct pci_dev, dev) + +or + +static inline struct pci_dev * to_pci_dev(struct kobject * kobj) +{ + return container_of(n, struct pci_dev, dev); +} + + This allows the compiler to verify type-safety of the operations + that are performed (which is Good). + + +- Initialize the device on registration. + + When devices are discovered or registered with the bus type, the + bus driver should initialize the generic device. The most important + things to initialize are the bus_id, parent, and bus fields. + + The bus_id is an ASCII string that contains the device's address on + the bus. The format of this string is bus-specific. This is + necessary for representing devices in sysfs. + + parent is the physical parent of the device. It is important that + the bus driver sets this field correctly. + + The driver model maintains an ordered list of devices that it uses + for power management. This list must be in order to guarantee that + devices are shutdown before their physical parents, and vice versa. + The order of this list is determined by the parent of registered + devices. + + Also, the location of the device's sysfs directory depends on a + device's parent. sysfs exports a directory structure that mirrors + the device hierarchy. Accurately setting the parent guarantees that + sysfs will accurately represent the hierarchy. + + The device's bus field is a pointer to the bus type the device + belongs to. This should be set to the bus_type that was declared + and initialized before. + + Optionally, the bus driver may set the device's name and release + fields. + + The name field is an ASCII string describing the device, like + + "ATI Technologies Inc Radeon QD" + + The release field is a callback that the driver model core calls + when the device has been removed, and all references to it have + been released. More on this in a moment. + + +- Register the device. + + Once the generic device has been initialized, it can be registered + with the driver model core by doing: + + device_register(&dev->dev); + + It can later be unregistered by doing: + + device_unregister(&dev->dev); + + This should happen on buses that support hotpluggable devices. + If a bus driver unregisters a device, it should not immediately free + it. It should instead wait for the driver model core to call the + device's release method, then free the bus-specific object. + (There may be other code that is currently referencing the device + structure, and it would be rude to free the device while that is + happening). + + + When the device is registered, a directory in sysfs is created. + The PCI tree in sysfs looks like: + +/sys/devices/pci0/ +|-- 00:00.0 +|-- 00:01.0 +| `-- 01:00.0 +|-- 00:02.0 +| `-- 02:1f.0 +| `-- 03:00.0 +|-- 00:1e.0 +| `-- 04:04.0 +|-- 00:1f.0 +|-- 00:1f.1 +| |-- ide0 +| | |-- 0.0 +| | `-- 0.1 +| `-- ide1 +| `-- 1.0 +|-- 00:1f.2 +|-- 00:1f.3 +`-- 00:1f.5 + + Also, symlinks are created in the bus's 'devices' directory + that point to the device's directory in the physical hierarchy. + +/sys/bus/pci/devices/ +|-- 00:00.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:00.0 +|-- 00:01.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:01.0 +|-- 00:02.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:02.0 +|-- 00:1e.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:1e.0 +|-- 00:1f.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:1f.0 +|-- 00:1f.1 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:1f.1 +|-- 00:1f.2 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:1f.2 +|-- 00:1f.3 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:1f.3 +|-- 00:1f.5 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:1f.5 +|-- 01:00.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:01.0/01:00.0 +|-- 02:1f.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:02.0/02:1f.0 +|-- 03:00.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:02.0/02:1f.0/03:00.0 +`-- 04:04.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:1e.0/04:04.0 + + + +Step 3: Registering Drivers. + +struct device_driver is a simple driver structure that contains a set +of operations that the driver model core may call. + + +- Embed a struct device_driver in the bus-specific driver. + + Just like with devices, do something like: + +struct pci_driver { + ... + struct device_driver driver; +}; + + +- Initialize the generic driver structure. + + When the driver registers with the bus (e.g. doing pci_register_driver()), + initialize the necessary fields of the driver: the name and bus + fields. + + +- Register the driver. + + After the generic driver has been initialized, call + + driver_register(&drv->driver); + + to register the driver with the core. + + When the driver is unregistered from the bus, unregister it from the + core by doing: + + driver_unregister(&drv->driver); + + Note that this will block until all references to the driver have + gone away. Normally, there will not be any. + + +- Sysfs representation. + + Drivers are exported via sysfs in their bus's 'driver's directory. + For example: + +/sys/bus/pci/drivers/ +|-- 3c59x +|-- Ensoniq AudioPCI +|-- agpgart-amdk7 +|-- e100 +`-- serial + + +Step 4: Define Generic Methods for Drivers. + +struct device_driver defines a set of operations that the driver model +core calls. Most of these operations are probably similar to +operations the bus already defines for drivers, but taking different +parameters. + +It would be difficult and tedious to force every driver on a bus to +simultaneously convert their drivers to generic format. Instead, the +bus driver should define single instances of the generic methods that +forward call to the bus-specific drivers. For instance: + + +static int pci_device_remove(struct device * dev) +{ + struct pci_dev * pci_dev = to_pci_dev(dev); + struct pci_driver * drv = pci_dev->driver; + + if (drv) { + if (drv->remove) + drv->remove(pci_dev); + pci_dev->driver = NULL; + } + return 0; +} + + +The generic driver should be initialized with these methods before it +is registered. + + /* initialize common driver fields */ + drv->driver.name = drv->name; + drv->driver.bus = &pci_bus_type; + drv->driver.probe = pci_device_probe; + drv->driver.resume = pci_device_resume; + drv->driver.suspend = pci_device_suspend; + drv->driver.remove = pci_device_remove; + + /* register with core */ + driver_register(&drv->driver); + + +Ideally, the bus should only initialize the fields if they are not +already set. This allows the drivers to implement their own generic +methods. + + +Step 5: Support generic driver binding. + +The model assumes that a device or driver can be dynamically +registered with the bus at any time. When registration happens, +devices must be bound to a driver, or drivers must be bound to all +devices that it supports. + +A driver typically contains a list of device IDs that it supports. The +bus driver compares these IDs to the IDs of devices registered with it. +The format of the device IDs, and the semantics for comparing them are +bus-specific, so the generic model does attempt to generalize them. + +Instead, a bus may supply a method in struct bus_type that does the +comparison: + + int (*match)(struct device * dev, struct device_driver * drv); + +match should return '1' if the driver supports the device, and '0' +otherwise. + +When a device is registered, the bus's list of drivers is iterated +over. bus->match() is called for each one until a match is found. + +When a driver is registered, the bus's list of devices is iterated +over. bus->match() is called for each device that is not already +claimed by a driver. + +When a device is successfully bound to a device, device->driver is +set, the device is added to a per-driver list of devices, and a +symlink is created in the driver's sysfs directory that points to the +device's physical directory: + +/sys/bus/pci/drivers/ +|-- 3c59x +| `-- 00:0b.0 -> ../../../../devices/pci0/00:0b.0 +|-- Ensoniq AudioPCI +|-- agpgart-amdk7 +| `-- 00:00.0 -> ../../../../devices/pci0/00:00.0 +|-- e100 +| `-- 00:0c.0 -> ../../../../devices/pci0/00:0c.0 +`-- serial + + +This driver binding should replace the existing driver binding +mechanism the bus currently uses. + + +Step 6: Supply a hotplug callback. + +Whenever a device is registered with the driver model core, the +userspace program /sbin/hotplug is called to notify userspace. +Users can define actions to perform when a device is inserted or +removed. + +The driver model core passes several arguments to userspace via +environment variables, including + +- ACTION: set to 'add' or 'remove' +- DEVPATH: set to the device's physical path in sysfs. + +A bus driver may also supply additional parameters for userspace to +consume. To do this, a bus must implement the 'hotplug' method in +struct bus_type: + + int (*hotplug) (struct device *dev, char **envp, + int num_envp, char *buffer, int buffer_size); + +This is called immediately before /sbin/hotplug is executed. + + +Step 7: Cleaning up the bus driver. + +The generic bus, device, and driver structures provide several fields +that can replace those defined privately to the bus driver. + +- Device list. + +struct bus_type contains a list of all devices registered with the bus +type. This includes all devices on all instances of that bus type. +An internal list that the bus uses may be removed, in favor of using +this one. + +The core provides an iterator to access these devices. + +int bus_for_each_dev(struct bus_type * bus, struct device * start, + void * data, int (*fn)(struct device *, void *)); + + +- Driver list. + +struct bus_type also contains a list of all drivers registered with +it. An internal list of drivers that the bus driver maintains may +be removed in favor of using the generic one. + +The drivers may be iterated over, like devices: + +int bus_for_each_drv(struct bus_type * bus, struct device_driver * start, + void * data, int (*fn)(struct device_driver *, void *)); + + +Please see drivers/base/bus.c for more information. + + +- rwsem + +struct bus_type contains an rwsem that protects all core accesses to +the device and driver lists. This can be used by the bus driver +internally, and should be used when accessing the device or driver +lists the bus maintains. + + +- Device and driver fields. + +Some of the fields in struct device and struct device_driver duplicate +fields in the bus-specific representations of these objects. Feel free +to remove the bus-specific ones and favor the generic ones. Note +though, that this will likely mean fixing up all the drivers that +reference the bus-specific fields (though those should all be 1-line +changes). + |