Documentation/driver-api/pci/p2pdma.rst - linux - Git at Google

 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0

 ============================
 PCI Peer-to-Peer DMA Support
 ============================

 The PCI bus has pretty decent support for performing DMA transfers
 between two devices on the bus. This type of transaction is henceforth
 called Peer-to-Peer (or P2P). However, there are a number of issues that
 make P2P transactions tricky to do in a perfectly safe way.

 One of the biggest issues is that PCI doesn't require forwarding
 transactions between hierarchy domains, and in PCIe, each Root Port
 defines a separate hierarchy domain. To make things worse, there is no
 simple way to determine if a given Root Complex supports this or not.
 (See PCIe r4.0, sec 1.3.1). Therefore, as of this writing, the kernel
 only supports doing P2P when the endpoints involved are all behind the
 same PCI bridge, as such devices are all in the same PCI hierarchy
 domain, and the spec guarantees that all transactions within the
 hierarchy will be routable, but it does not require routing
 between hierarchies.

 The second issue is that to make use of existing interfaces in Linux,
 memory that is used for P2P transactions needs to be backed by struct
 pages. However, PCI BARs are not typically cache coherent so there are
 a few corner case gotchas with these pages so developers need to
 be careful about what they do with them.


 Driver Writer's Guide
 =====================

 In a given P2P implementation there may be three or more different
 types of kernel drivers in play:

 * Provider - A driver which provides or publishes P2P resources like
   memory or doorbell registers to other drivers.
 * Client - A driver which makes use of a resource by setting up a
   DMA transaction to or from it.
 * Orchestrator - A driver which orchestrates the flow of data between
   clients and providers.

 In many cases there could be overlap between these three types (i.e.,
 it may be typical for a driver to be both a provider and a client).

 For example, in the NVMe Target Copy Offload implementation:

 * The NVMe PCI driver is both a client, provider and orchestrator
   in that it exposes any CMB (Controller Memory Buffer) as a P2P memory
   resource (provider), it accepts P2P memory pages as buffers in requests
   to be used directly (client) and it can also make use of the CMB as
   submission queue entries (orchestrator).
 * The RDMA driver is a client in this arrangement so that an RNIC
   can DMA directly to the memory exposed by the NVMe device.
 * The NVMe Target driver (nvmet) can orchestrate the data from the RNIC
   to the P2P memory (CMB) and then to the NVMe device (and vice versa).

 This is currently the only arrangement supported by the kernel but
 one could imagine slight tweaks to this that would allow for the same
 functionality. For example, if a specific RNIC added a BAR with some
 memory behind it, its driver could add support as a P2P provider and
 then the NVMe Target could use the RNIC's memory instead of the CMB
 in cases where the NVMe cards in use do not have CMB support.


 Provider Drivers
 ----------------

 A provider simply needs to register a BAR (or a portion of a BAR)
 as a P2P DMA resource using :c:func:`pci_p2pdma_add_resource()`.
 This will register struct pages for all the specified memory.

 After that it may optionally publish all of its resources as
 P2P memory using :c:func:`pci_p2pmem_publish()`. This will allow
 any orchestrator drivers to find and use the memory. When marked in
 this way, the resource must be regular memory with no side effects.

 For the time being this is fairly rudimentary in that all resources
 are typically going to be P2P memory. Future work will likely expand
 this to include other types of resources like doorbells.


 Client Drivers
 --------------

 A client driver typically only has to conditionally change its DMA map
 routine to use the mapping function :c:func:`pci_p2pdma_map_sg()` instead
 of the usual :c:func:`dma_map_sg()` function. Memory mapped in this
 way does not need to be unmapped.

 The client may also, optionally, make use of
 :c:func:`is_pci_p2pdma_page()` to determine when to use the P2P mapping
 functions and when to use the regular mapping functions. In some
 situations, it may be more appropriate to use a flag to indicate a
 given request is P2P memory and map appropriately. It is important to
 ensure that struct pages that back P2P memory stay out of code that
 does not have support for them as other code may treat the pages as
 regular memory which may not be appropriate.


 Orchestrator Drivers
 --------------------

 The first task an orchestrator driver must do is compile a list of
 all client devices that will be involved in a given transaction. For
 example, the NVMe Target driver creates a list including the namespace
 block device and the RNIC in use. If the orchestrator has access to
 a specific P2P provider to use it may check compatibility using
 :c:func:`pci_p2pdma_distance()` otherwise it may find a memory provider
 that's compatible with all clients using  :c:func:`pci_p2pmem_find()`.
 If more than one provider is supported, the one nearest to all the clients will
 be chosen first. If more than one provider is an equal distance away, the
 one returned will be chosen at random (it is not an arbitrary but
 truly random). This function returns the PCI device to use for the provider
 with a reference taken and therefore when it's no longer needed it should be
 returned with pci_dev_put().

 Once a provider is selected, the orchestrator can then use
 :c:func:`pci_alloc_p2pmem()` and :c:func:`pci_free_p2pmem()` to
 allocate P2P memory from the provider. :c:func:`pci_p2pmem_alloc_sgl()`
 and :c:func:`pci_p2pmem_free_sgl()` are convenience functions for
 allocating scatter-gather lists with P2P memory.

 Struct Page Caveats
 -------------------

 Driver writers should be very careful about not passing these special
 struct pages to code that isn't prepared for it. At this time, the kernel
 interfaces do not have any checks for ensuring this. This obviously
 precludes passing these pages to userspace.

 P2P memory is also technically IO memory but should never have any side
 effects behind it. Thus, the order of loads and stores should not be important
 and ioreadX(), iowriteX() and friends should not be necessary.


 P2P DMA Support Library
 =======================

 .. kernel-doc:: drivers/pci/p2pdma.c
    :export:
	.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0

	============================
	PCI Peer-to-Peer DMA Support
	============================

	The PCI bus has pretty decent support for performing DMA transfers
	between two devices on the bus. This type of transaction is henceforth
	called Peer-to-Peer (or P2P). However, there are a number of issues that
	make P2P transactions tricky to do in a perfectly safe way.

	One of the biggest issues is that PCI doesn't require forwarding
	transactions between hierarchy domains, and in PCIe, each Root Port
	defines a separate hierarchy domain. To make things worse, there is no
	simple way to determine if a given Root Complex supports this or not.
	(See PCIe r4.0, sec 1.3.1). Therefore, as of this writing, the kernel
	only supports doing P2P when the endpoints involved are all behind the
	same PCI bridge, as such devices are all in the same PCI hierarchy
	domain, and the spec guarantees that all transactions within the
	hierarchy will be routable, but it does not require routing
	between hierarchies.

	The second issue is that to make use of existing interfaces in Linux,
	memory that is used for P2P transactions needs to be backed by struct
	pages. However, PCI BARs are not typically cache coherent so there are
	a few corner case gotchas with these pages so developers need to
	be careful about what they do with them.


	Driver Writer's Guide
	=====================

	In a given P2P implementation there may be three or more different
	types of kernel drivers in play:

	* Provider - A driver which provides or publishes P2P resources like
	memory or doorbell registers to other drivers.
	* Client - A driver which makes use of a resource by setting up a
	DMA transaction to or from it.
	* Orchestrator - A driver which orchestrates the flow of data between
	clients and providers.

	In many cases there could be overlap between these three types (i.e.,
	it may be typical for a driver to be both a provider and a client).

	For example, in the NVMe Target Copy Offload implementation:

	* The NVMe PCI driver is both a client, provider and orchestrator
	in that it exposes any CMB (Controller Memory Buffer) as a P2P memory
	resource (provider), it accepts P2P memory pages as buffers in requests
	to be used directly (client) and it can also make use of the CMB as
	submission queue entries (orchestrator).
	* The RDMA driver is a client in this arrangement so that an RNIC
	can DMA directly to the memory exposed by the NVMe device.
	* The NVMe Target driver (nvmet) can orchestrate the data from the RNIC
	to the P2P memory (CMB) and then to the NVMe device (and vice versa).

	This is currently the only arrangement supported by the kernel but
	one could imagine slight tweaks to this that would allow for the same
	functionality. For example, if a specific RNIC added a BAR with some
	memory behind it, its driver could add support as a P2P provider and
	then the NVMe Target could use the RNIC's memory instead of the CMB
	in cases where the NVMe cards in use do not have CMB support.


	Provider Drivers
	----------------

	A provider simply needs to register a BAR (or a portion of a BAR)
	as a P2P DMA resource using :c:func:`pci_p2pdma_add_resource()`.
	This will register struct pages for all the specified memory.

	After that it may optionally publish all of its resources as
	P2P memory using :c:func:`pci_p2pmem_publish()`. This will allow
	any orchestrator drivers to find and use the memory. When marked in
	this way, the resource must be regular memory with no side effects.

	For the time being this is fairly rudimentary in that all resources
	are typically going to be P2P memory. Future work will likely expand
	this to include other types of resources like doorbells.


	Client Drivers
	--------------

	A client driver typically only has to conditionally change its DMA map
	routine to use the mapping function :c:func:`pci_p2pdma_map_sg()` instead
	of the usual :c:func:`dma_map_sg()` function. Memory mapped in this
	way does not need to be unmapped.

	The client may also, optionally, make use of
	:c:func:`is_pci_p2pdma_page()` to determine when to use the P2P mapping
	functions and when to use the regular mapping functions. In some
	situations, it may be more appropriate to use a flag to indicate a
	given request is P2P memory and map appropriately. It is important to
	ensure that struct pages that back P2P memory stay out of code that
	does not have support for them as other code may treat the pages as
	regular memory which may not be appropriate.


	Orchestrator Drivers
	--------------------

	The first task an orchestrator driver must do is compile a list of
	all client devices that will be involved in a given transaction. For
	example, the NVMe Target driver creates a list including the namespace
	block device and the RNIC in use. If the orchestrator has access to
	a specific P2P provider to use it may check compatibility using
	:c:func:`pci_p2pdma_distance()` otherwise it may find a memory provider
	that's compatible with all clients using :c:func:`pci_p2pmem_find()`.
	If more than one provider is supported, the one nearest to all the clients will
	be chosen first. If more than one provider is an equal distance away, the
	one returned will be chosen at random (it is not an arbitrary but
	truly random). This function returns the PCI device to use for the provider
	with a reference taken and therefore when it's no longer needed it should be
	returned with pci_dev_put().

	Once a provider is selected, the orchestrator can then use
	:c:func:`pci_alloc_p2pmem()` and :c:func:`pci_free_p2pmem()` to
	allocate P2P memory from the provider. :c:func:`pci_p2pmem_alloc_sgl()`
	and :c:func:`pci_p2pmem_free_sgl()` are convenience functions for
	allocating scatter-gather lists with P2P memory.

	Struct Page Caveats
	-------------------

	Driver writers should be very careful about not passing these special
	struct pages to code that isn't prepared for it. At this time, the kernel
	interfaces do not have any checks for ensuring this. This obviously
	precludes passing these pages to userspace.

	P2P memory is also technically IO memory but should never have any side
	effects behind it. Thus, the order of loads and stores should not be important
	and ioreadX(), iowriteX() and friends should not be necessary.


	P2P DMA Support Library
	=======================

	.. kernel-doc:: drivers/pci/p2pdma.c
	:export: