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| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/memory-barriers.txt | 115 |
1 files changed, 70 insertions, 45 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt index 1c22b21ae922..5eb6f4c6a133 100644 --- a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt +++ b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt @@ -2599,72 +2599,97 @@ likely, then interrupt-disabling locks should be used to guarantee ordering. KERNEL I/O BARRIER EFFECTS ========================== -When accessing I/O memory, drivers should use the appropriate accessor -functions: +Interfacing with peripherals via I/O accesses is deeply architecture and device +specific. Therefore, drivers which are inherently non-portable may rely on +specific behaviours of their target systems in order to achieve synchronization +in the most lightweight manner possible. For drivers intending to be portable +between multiple architectures and bus implementations, the kernel offers a +series of accessor functions that provide various degrees of ordering +guarantees: - (*) inX(), outX(): + (*) readX(), writeX(): - These are intended to talk to I/O space rather than memory space, but - that's primarily a CPU-specific concept. The i386 and x86_64 processors - do indeed have special I/O space access cycles and instructions, but many - CPUs don't have such a concept. + The readX() and writeX() MMIO accessors take a pointer to the peripheral + being accessed as an __iomem * parameter. For pointers mapped with the + default I/O attributes (e.g. those returned by ioremap()), then the + ordering guarantees are as follows: - The PCI bus, amongst others, defines an I/O space concept which - on such - CPUs as i386 and x86_64 - readily maps to the CPU's concept of I/O - space. However, it may also be mapped as a virtual I/O space in the CPU's - memory map, particularly on those CPUs that don't support alternate I/O - spaces. + 1. All readX() and writeX() accesses to the same peripheral are ordered + with respect to each other. For example, this ensures that MMIO register + writes by the CPU to a particular device will arrive in program order. - Accesses to this space may be fully synchronous (as on i386), but - intermediary bridges (such as the PCI host bridge) may not fully honour - that. + 2. A writeX() by the CPU to the peripheral will first wait for the + completion of all prior CPU writes to memory. For example, this ensures + that writes by the CPU to an outbound DMA buffer allocated by + dma_alloc_coherent() will be visible to a DMA engine when the CPU writes + to its MMIO control register to trigger the transfer. - They are guaranteed to be fully ordered with respect to each other. + 3. A readX() by the CPU from the peripheral will complete before any + subsequent CPU reads from memory can begin. For example, this ensures + that reads by the CPU from an incoming DMA buffer allocated by + dma_alloc_coherent() will not see stale data after reading from the DMA + engine's MMIO status register to establish that the DMA transfer has + completed. - They are not guaranteed to be fully ordered with respect to other types of - memory and I/O operation. + 4. A readX() by the CPU from the peripheral will complete before any + subsequent delay() loop can begin execution. For example, this ensures + that two MMIO register writes by the CPU to a peripheral will arrive at + least 1us apart if the first write is immediately read back with readX() + and udelay(1) is called prior to the second writeX(). - (*) readX(), writeX(): + __iomem pointers obtained with non-default attributes (e.g. those returned + by ioremap_wc()) are unlikely to provide many of these guarantees. - Whether these are guaranteed to be fully ordered and uncombined with - respect to each other on the issuing CPU depends on the characteristics - defined for the memory window through which they're accessing. On later - i386 architecture machines, for example, this is controlled by way of the - MTRR registers. + (*) readX_relaxed(), writeX_relaxed(): - Ordinarily, these will be guaranteed to be fully ordered and uncombined, - provided they're not accessing a prefetchable device. + These are similar to readX() and writeX(), but provide weaker memory + ordering guarantees. Specifically, they do not guarantee ordering with + respect to normal memory accesses or delay() loops (i.e bullets 2-4 above) + but they are still guaranteed to be ordered with respect to other accesses + to the same peripheral when operating on __iomem pointers mapped with the + default I/O attributes. - However, intermediary hardware (such as a PCI bridge) may indulge in - deferral if it so wishes; to flush a store, a load from the same location - is preferred[*], but a load from the same device or from configuration - space should suffice for PCI. + (*) readsX(), writesX(): - [*] NOTE! attempting to load from the same location as was written to may - cause a malfunction - consider the 16550 Rx/Tx serial registers for - example. + The readsX() and writesX() MMIO accessors are designed for accessing + register-based, memory-mapped FIFOs residing on peripherals that are not + capable of performing DMA. Consequently, they provide only the ordering + guarantees of readX_relaxed() and writeX_relaxed(), as documented above. - Used with prefetchable I/O memory, an mmiowb() barrier may be required to - force stores to be ordered. + (*) inX(), outX(): - Please refer to the PCI specification for more information on interactions - between PCI transactions. + The inX() and outX() accessors are intended to access legacy port-mapped + I/O peripherals, which may require special instructions on some + architectures (notably x86). The port number of the peripheral being + accessed is passed as an argument. - (*) readX_relaxed(), writeX_relaxed() + Since many CPU architectures ultimately access these peripherals via an + internal virtual memory mapping, the portable ordering guarantees provided + by inX() and outX() are the same as those provided by readX() and writeX() + respectively when accessing a mapping with the default I/O attributes. - These are similar to readX() and writeX(), but provide weaker memory - ordering guarantees. Specifically, they do not guarantee ordering with - respect to normal memory accesses (e.g. DMA buffers) nor do they guarantee - ordering with respect to LOCK or UNLOCK operations. If the latter is - required, an mmiowb() barrier can be used. Note that relaxed accesses to - the same peripheral are guaranteed to be ordered with respect to each - other. + Device drivers may expect outX() to emit a non-posted write transaction + that waits for a completion response from the I/O peripheral before + returning. This is not guaranteed by all architectures and is therefore + not part of the portable ordering semantics. + + (*) insX(), outsX(): + + As above, the insX() and outsX() accessors provide the same ordering + guarantees as readsX() and writesX() respectively when accessing a mapping + with the default I/O attributes. (*) ioreadX(), iowriteX() These will perform appropriately for the type of access they're actually doing, be it inX()/outX() or readX()/writeX(). +All of these accessors assume that the underlying peripheral is little-endian, +and will therefore perform byte-swapping operations on big-endian architectures. + +Composing I/O ordering barriers with SMP ordering barriers and LOCK/UNLOCK +operations is a dangerous sport which may require the use of mmiowb(). See the +subsection "Acquires vs I/O accesses" for more information. ======================================== ASSUMED MINIMUM EXECUTION ORDERING MODEL |