diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/crypto/async-tx-api.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/crypto/async-tx-api.txt | 225 |
1 files changed, 225 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/crypto/async-tx-api.txt b/Documentation/crypto/async-tx-api.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7bf1be20d --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/crypto/async-tx-api.txt @@ -0,0 +1,225 @@ + Asynchronous Transfers/Transforms API + +1 INTRODUCTION + +2 GENEALOGY + +3 USAGE +3.1 General format of the API +3.2 Supported operations +3.3 Descriptor management +3.4 When does the operation execute? +3.5 When does the operation complete? +3.6 Constraints +3.7 Example + +4 DMAENGINE DRIVER DEVELOPER NOTES +4.1 Conformance points +4.2 "My application needs exclusive control of hardware channels" + +5 SOURCE + +--- + +1 INTRODUCTION + +The async_tx API provides methods for describing a chain of asynchronous +bulk memory transfers/transforms with support for inter-transactional +dependencies. It is implemented as a dmaengine client that smooths over +the details of different hardware offload engine implementations. Code +that is written to the API can optimize for asynchronous operation and +the API will fit the chain of operations to the available offload +resources. + +2 GENEALOGY + +The API was initially designed to offload the memory copy and +xor-parity-calculations of the md-raid5 driver using the offload engines +present in the Intel(R) Xscale series of I/O processors. It also built +on the 'dmaengine' layer developed for offloading memory copies in the +network stack using Intel(R) I/OAT engines. The following design +features surfaced as a result: +1/ implicit synchronous path: users of the API do not need to know if + the platform they are running on has offload capabilities. The + operation will be offloaded when an engine is available and carried out + in software otherwise. +2/ cross channel dependency chains: the API allows a chain of dependent + operations to be submitted, like xor->copy->xor in the raid5 case. The + API automatically handles cases where the transition from one operation + to another implies a hardware channel switch. +3/ dmaengine extensions to support multiple clients and operation types + beyond 'memcpy' + +3 USAGE + +3.1 General format of the API: +struct dma_async_tx_descriptor * +async_<operation>(<op specific parameters>, struct async_submit ctl *submit) + +3.2 Supported operations: +memcpy - memory copy between a source and a destination buffer +memset - fill a destination buffer with a byte value +xor - xor a series of source buffers and write the result to a + destination buffer +xor_val - xor a series of source buffers and set a flag if the + result is zero. The implementation attempts to prevent + writes to memory +pq - generate the p+q (raid6 syndrome) from a series of source buffers +pq_val - validate that a p and or q buffer are in sync with a given series of + sources +datap - (raid6_datap_recov) recover a raid6 data block and the p block + from the given sources +2data - (raid6_2data_recov) recover 2 raid6 data blocks from the given + sources + +3.3 Descriptor management: +The return value is non-NULL and points to a 'descriptor' when the operation +has been queued to execute asynchronously. Descriptors are recycled +resources, under control of the offload engine driver, to be reused as +operations complete. When an application needs to submit a chain of +operations it must guarantee that the descriptor is not automatically recycled +before the dependency is submitted. This requires that all descriptors be +acknowledged by the application before the offload engine driver is allowed to +recycle (or free) the descriptor. A descriptor can be acked by one of the +following methods: +1/ setting the ASYNC_TX_ACK flag if no child operations are to be submitted +2/ submitting an unacknowledged descriptor as a dependency to another + async_tx call will implicitly set the acknowledged state. +3/ calling async_tx_ack() on the descriptor. + +3.4 When does the operation execute? +Operations do not immediately issue after return from the +async_<operation> call. Offload engine drivers batch operations to +improve performance by reducing the number of mmio cycles needed to +manage the channel. Once a driver-specific threshold is met the driver +automatically issues pending operations. An application can force this +event by calling async_tx_issue_pending_all(). This operates on all +channels since the application has no knowledge of channel to operation +mapping. + +3.5 When does the operation complete? +There are two methods for an application to learn about the completion +of an operation. +1/ Call dma_wait_for_async_tx(). This call causes the CPU to spin while + it polls for the completion of the operation. It handles dependency + chains and issuing pending operations. +2/ Specify a completion callback. The callback routine runs in tasklet + context if the offload engine driver supports interrupts, or it is + called in application context if the operation is carried out + synchronously in software. The callback can be set in the call to + async_<operation>, or when the application needs to submit a chain of + unknown length it can use the async_trigger_callback() routine to set a + completion interrupt/callback at the end of the chain. + +3.6 Constraints: +1/ Calls to async_<operation> are not permitted in IRQ context. Other + contexts are permitted provided constraint #2 is not violated. +2/ Completion callback routines cannot submit new operations. This + results in recursion in the synchronous case and spin_locks being + acquired twice in the asynchronous case. + +3.7 Example: +Perform a xor->copy->xor operation where each operation depends on the +result from the previous operation: + +void callback(void *param) +{ + struct completion *cmp = param; + + complete(cmp); +} + +void run_xor_copy_xor(struct page **xor_srcs, + int xor_src_cnt, + struct page *xor_dest, + size_t xor_len, + struct page *copy_src, + struct page *copy_dest, + size_t copy_len) +{ + struct dma_async_tx_descriptor *tx; + addr_conv_t addr_conv[xor_src_cnt]; + struct async_submit_ctl submit; + addr_conv_t addr_conv[NDISKS]; + struct completion cmp; + + init_async_submit(&submit, ASYNC_TX_XOR_DROP_DST, NULL, NULL, NULL, + addr_conv); + tx = async_xor(xor_dest, xor_srcs, 0, xor_src_cnt, xor_len, &submit) + + submit->depend_tx = tx; + tx = async_memcpy(copy_dest, copy_src, 0, 0, copy_len, &submit); + + init_completion(&cmp); + init_async_submit(&submit, ASYNC_TX_XOR_DROP_DST | ASYNC_TX_ACK, tx, + callback, &cmp, addr_conv); + tx = async_xor(xor_dest, xor_srcs, 0, xor_src_cnt, xor_len, &submit); + + async_tx_issue_pending_all(); + + wait_for_completion(&cmp); +} + +See include/linux/async_tx.h for more information on the flags. See the +ops_run_* and ops_complete_* routines in drivers/md/raid5.c for more +implementation examples. + +4 DRIVER DEVELOPMENT NOTES + +4.1 Conformance points: +There are a few conformance points required in dmaengine drivers to +accommodate assumptions made by applications using the async_tx API: +1/ Completion callbacks are expected to happen in tasklet context +2/ dma_async_tx_descriptor fields are never manipulated in IRQ context +3/ Use async_tx_run_dependencies() in the descriptor clean up path to + handle submission of dependent operations + +4.2 "My application needs exclusive control of hardware channels" +Primarily this requirement arises from cases where a DMA engine driver +is being used to support device-to-memory operations. A channel that is +performing these operations cannot, for many platform specific reasons, +be shared. For these cases the dma_request_channel() interface is +provided. + +The interface is: +struct dma_chan *dma_request_channel(dma_cap_mask_t mask, + dma_filter_fn filter_fn, + void *filter_param); + +Where dma_filter_fn is defined as: +typedef bool (*dma_filter_fn)(struct dma_chan *chan, void *filter_param); + +When the optional 'filter_fn' parameter is set to NULL +dma_request_channel simply returns the first channel that satisfies the +capability mask. Otherwise, when the mask parameter is insufficient for +specifying the necessary channel, the filter_fn routine can be used to +disposition the available channels in the system. The filter_fn routine +is called once for each free channel in the system. Upon seeing a +suitable channel filter_fn returns DMA_ACK which flags that channel to +be the return value from dma_request_channel. A channel allocated via +this interface is exclusive to the caller, until dma_release_channel() +is called. + +The DMA_PRIVATE capability flag is used to tag dma devices that should +not be used by the general-purpose allocator. It can be set at +initialization time if it is known that a channel will always be +private. Alternatively, it is set when dma_request_channel() finds an +unused "public" channel. + +A couple caveats to note when implementing a driver and consumer: +1/ Once a channel has been privately allocated it will no longer be + considered by the general-purpose allocator even after a call to + dma_release_channel(). +2/ Since capabilities are specified at the device level a dma_device + with multiple channels will either have all channels public, or all + channels private. + +5 SOURCE + +include/linux/dmaengine.h: core header file for DMA drivers and api users +drivers/dma/dmaengine.c: offload engine channel management routines +drivers/dma/: location for offload engine drivers +include/linux/async_tx.h: core header file for the async_tx api +crypto/async_tx/async_tx.c: async_tx interface to dmaengine and common code +crypto/async_tx/async_memcpy.c: copy offload +crypto/async_tx/async_xor.c: xor and xor zero sum offload |