diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/gpu/drm-uapi.rst')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/gpu/drm-uapi.rst | 488 |
1 files changed, 488 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/drm-uapi.rst b/Documentation/gpu/drm-uapi.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..ce47b4292 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/gpu/drm-uapi.rst @@ -0,0 +1,488 @@ +.. Copyright 2020 DisplayLink (UK) Ltd. + +=================== +Userland interfaces +=================== + +The DRM core exports several interfaces to applications, generally +intended to be used through corresponding libdrm wrapper functions. In +addition, drivers export device-specific interfaces for use by userspace +drivers & device-aware applications through ioctls and sysfs files. + +External interfaces include: memory mapping, context management, DMA +operations, AGP management, vblank control, fence management, memory +management, and output management. + +Cover generic ioctls and sysfs layout here. We only need high-level +info, since man pages should cover the rest. + +libdrm Device Lookup +==================== + +.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/drm_ioctl.c + :doc: getunique and setversion story + + +.. _drm_primary_node: + +Primary Nodes, DRM Master and Authentication +============================================ + +.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/drm_auth.c + :doc: master and authentication + +.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/drm_auth.c + :export: + +.. kernel-doc:: include/drm/drm_auth.h + :internal: + + +.. _drm_leasing: + +DRM Display Resource Leasing +============================ + +.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/drm_lease.c + :doc: drm leasing + +Open-Source Userspace Requirements +================================== + +The DRM subsystem has stricter requirements than most other kernel subsystems on +what the userspace side for new uAPI needs to look like. This section here +explains what exactly those requirements are, and why they exist. + +The short summary is that any addition of DRM uAPI requires corresponding +open-sourced userspace patches, and those patches must be reviewed and ready for +merging into a suitable and canonical upstream project. + +GFX devices (both display and render/GPU side) are really complex bits of +hardware, with userspace and kernel by necessity having to work together really +closely. The interfaces, for rendering and modesetting, must be extremely wide +and flexible, and therefore it is almost always impossible to precisely define +them for every possible corner case. This in turn makes it really practically +infeasible to differentiate between behaviour that's required by userspace, and +which must not be changed to avoid regressions, and behaviour which is only an +accidental artifact of the current implementation. + +Without access to the full source code of all userspace users that means it +becomes impossible to change the implementation details, since userspace could +depend upon the accidental behaviour of the current implementation in minute +details. And debugging such regressions without access to source code is pretty +much impossible. As a consequence this means: + +- The Linux kernel's "no regression" policy holds in practice only for + open-source userspace of the DRM subsystem. DRM developers are perfectly fine + if closed-source blob drivers in userspace use the same uAPI as the open + drivers, but they must do so in the exact same way as the open drivers. + Creative (ab)use of the interfaces will, and in the past routinely has, lead + to breakage. + +- Any new userspace interface must have an open-source implementation as + demonstration vehicle. + +The other reason for requiring open-source userspace is uAPI review. Since the +kernel and userspace parts of a GFX stack must work together so closely, code +review can only assess whether a new interface achieves its goals by looking at +both sides. Making sure that the interface indeed covers the use-case fully +leads to a few additional requirements: + +- The open-source userspace must not be a toy/test application, but the real + thing. Specifically it needs to handle all the usual error and corner cases. + These are often the places where new uAPI falls apart and hence essential to + assess the fitness of a proposed interface. + +- The userspace side must be fully reviewed and tested to the standards of that + userspace project. For e.g. mesa this means piglit testcases and review on the + mailing list. This is again to ensure that the new interface actually gets the + job done. The userspace-side reviewer should also provide an Acked-by on the + kernel uAPI patch indicating that they believe the proposed uAPI is sound and + sufficiently documented and validated for userspace's consumption. + +- The userspace patches must be against the canonical upstream, not some vendor + fork. This is to make sure that no one cheats on the review and testing + requirements by doing a quick fork. + +- The kernel patch can only be merged after all the above requirements are met, + but it **must** be merged to either drm-next or drm-misc-next **before** the + userspace patches land. uAPI always flows from the kernel, doing things the + other way round risks divergence of the uAPI definitions and header files. + +These are fairly steep requirements, but have grown out from years of shared +pain and experience with uAPI added hastily, and almost always regretted about +just as fast. GFX devices change really fast, requiring a paradigm shift and +entire new set of uAPI interfaces every few years at least. Together with the +Linux kernel's guarantee to keep existing userspace running for 10+ years this +is already rather painful for the DRM subsystem, with multiple different uAPIs +for the same thing co-existing. If we add a few more complete mistakes into the +mix every year it would be entirely unmanageable. + +.. _drm_render_node: + +Render nodes +============ + +DRM core provides multiple character-devices for user-space to use. +Depending on which device is opened, user-space can perform a different +set of operations (mainly ioctls). The primary node is always created +and called card<num>. Additionally, a currently unused control node, +called controlD<num> is also created. The primary node provides all +legacy operations and historically was the only interface used by +userspace. With KMS, the control node was introduced. However, the +planned KMS control interface has never been written and so the control +node stays unused to date. + +With the increased use of offscreen renderers and GPGPU applications, +clients no longer require running compositors or graphics servers to +make use of a GPU. But the DRM API required unprivileged clients to +authenticate to a DRM-Master prior to getting GPU access. To avoid this +step and to grant clients GPU access without authenticating, render +nodes were introduced. Render nodes solely serve render clients, that +is, no modesetting or privileged ioctls can be issued on render nodes. +Only non-global rendering commands are allowed. If a driver supports +render nodes, it must advertise it via the DRIVER_RENDER DRM driver +capability. If not supported, the primary node must be used for render +clients together with the legacy drmAuth authentication procedure. + +If a driver advertises render node support, DRM core will create a +separate render node called renderD<num>. There will be one render node +per device. No ioctls except PRIME-related ioctls will be allowed on +this node. Especially GEM_OPEN will be explicitly prohibited. For a +complete list of driver-independent ioctls that can be used on render +nodes, see the ioctls marked DRM_RENDER_ALLOW in drm_ioctl.c Render +nodes are designed to avoid the buffer-leaks, which occur if clients +guess the flink names or mmap offsets on the legacy interface. +Additionally to this basic interface, drivers must mark their +driver-dependent render-only ioctls as DRM_RENDER_ALLOW so render +clients can use them. Driver authors must be careful not to allow any +privileged ioctls on render nodes. + +With render nodes, user-space can now control access to the render node +via basic file-system access-modes. A running graphics server which +authenticates clients on the privileged primary/legacy node is no longer +required. Instead, a client can open the render node and is immediately +granted GPU access. Communication between clients (or servers) is done +via PRIME. FLINK from render node to legacy node is not supported. New +clients must not use the insecure FLINK interface. + +Besides dropping all modeset/global ioctls, render nodes also drop the +DRM-Master concept. There is no reason to associate render clients with +a DRM-Master as they are independent of any graphics server. Besides, +they must work without any running master, anyway. Drivers must be able +to run without a master object if they support render nodes. If, on the +other hand, a driver requires shared state between clients which is +visible to user-space and accessible beyond open-file boundaries, they +cannot support render nodes. + +Device Hot-Unplug +================= + +.. note:: + The following is the plan. Implementation is not there yet + (2020 May). + +Graphics devices (display and/or render) may be connected via USB (e.g. +display adapters or docking stations) or Thunderbolt (e.g. eGPU). An end +user is able to hot-unplug this kind of devices while they are being +used, and expects that the very least the machine does not crash. Any +damage from hot-unplugging a DRM device needs to be limited as much as +possible and userspace must be given the chance to handle it if it wants +to. Ideally, unplugging a DRM device still lets a desktop continue to +run, but that is going to need explicit support throughout the whole +graphics stack: from kernel and userspace drivers, through display +servers, via window system protocols, and in applications and libraries. + +Other scenarios that should lead to the same are: unrecoverable GPU +crash, PCI device disappearing off the bus, or forced unbind of a driver +from the physical device. + +In other words, from userspace perspective everything needs to keep on +working more or less, until userspace stops using the disappeared DRM +device and closes it completely. Userspace will learn of the device +disappearance from the device removed uevent, ioctls returning ENODEV +(or driver-specific ioctls returning driver-specific things), or open() +returning ENXIO. + +Only after userspace has closed all relevant DRM device and dmabuf file +descriptors and removed all mmaps, the DRM driver can tear down its +instance for the device that no longer exists. If the same physical +device somehow comes back in the mean time, it shall be a new DRM +device. + +Similar to PIDs, chardev minor numbers are not recycled immediately. A +new DRM device always picks the next free minor number compared to the +previous one allocated, and wraps around when minor numbers are +exhausted. + +The goal raises at least the following requirements for the kernel and +drivers. + +Requirements for KMS UAPI +------------------------- + +- KMS connectors must change their status to disconnected. + +- Legacy modesets and pageflips, and atomic commits, both real and + TEST_ONLY, and any other ioctls either fail with ENODEV or fake + success. + +- Pending non-blocking KMS operations deliver the DRM events userspace + is expecting. This applies also to ioctls that faked success. + +- open() on a device node whose underlying device has disappeared will + fail with ENXIO. + +- Attempting to create a DRM lease on a disappeared DRM device will + fail with ENODEV. Existing DRM leases remain and work as listed + above. + +Requirements for Render and Cross-Device UAPI +--------------------------------------------- + +- All GPU jobs that can no longer run must have their fences + force-signalled to avoid inflicting hangs on userspace. + The associated error code is ENODEV. + +- Some userspace APIs already define what should happen when the device + disappears (OpenGL, GL ES: `GL_KHR_robustness`_; `Vulkan`_: + VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST; etc.). DRM drivers are free to implement this + behaviour the way they see best, e.g. returning failures in + driver-specific ioctls and handling those in userspace drivers, or + rely on uevents, and so on. + +- dmabuf which point to memory that has disappeared will either fail to + import with ENODEV or continue to be successfully imported if it would + have succeeded before the disappearance. See also about memory maps + below for already imported dmabufs. + +- Attempting to import a dmabuf to a disappeared device will either fail + with ENODEV or succeed if it would have succeeded without the + disappearance. + +- open() on a device node whose underlying device has disappeared will + fail with ENXIO. + +.. _GL_KHR_robustness: https://www.khronos.org/registry/OpenGL/extensions/KHR/KHR_robustness.txt +.. _Vulkan: https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/ + +Requirements for Memory Maps +---------------------------- + +Memory maps have further requirements that apply to both existing maps +and maps created after the device has disappeared. If the underlying +memory disappears, the map is created or modified such that reads and +writes will still complete successfully but the result is undefined. +This applies to both userspace mmap()'d memory and memory pointed to by +dmabuf which might be mapped to other devices (cross-device dmabuf +imports). + +Raising SIGBUS is not an option, because userspace cannot realistically +handle it. Signal handlers are global, which makes them extremely +difficult to use correctly from libraries like those that Mesa produces. +Signal handlers are not composable, you can't have different handlers +for GPU1 and GPU2 from different vendors, and a third handler for +mmapped regular files. Threads cause additional pain with signal +handling as well. + +.. _drm_driver_ioctl: + +IOCTL Support on Device Nodes +============================= + +.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/drm_ioctl.c + :doc: driver specific ioctls + +Recommended IOCTL Return Values +------------------------------- + +In theory a driver's IOCTL callback is only allowed to return very few error +codes. In practice it's good to abuse a few more. This section documents common +practice within the DRM subsystem: + +ENOENT: + Strictly this should only be used when a file doesn't exist e.g. when + calling the open() syscall. We reuse that to signal any kind of object + lookup failure, e.g. for unknown GEM buffer object handles, unknown KMS + object handles and similar cases. + +ENOSPC: + Some drivers use this to differentiate "out of kernel memory" from "out + of VRAM". Sometimes also applies to other limited gpu resources used for + rendering (e.g. when you have a special limited compression buffer). + Sometimes resource allocation/reservation issues in command submission + IOCTLs are also signalled through EDEADLK. + + Simply running out of kernel/system memory is signalled through ENOMEM. + +EPERM/EACCES: + Returned for an operation that is valid, but needs more privileges. + E.g. root-only or much more common, DRM master-only operations return + this when called by unpriviledged clients. There's no clear + difference between EACCES and EPERM. + +ENODEV: + The device is not present anymore or is not yet fully initialized. + +EOPNOTSUPP: + Feature (like PRIME, modesetting, GEM) is not supported by the driver. + +ENXIO: + Remote failure, either a hardware transaction (like i2c), but also used + when the exporting driver of a shared dma-buf or fence doesn't support a + feature needed. + +EINTR: + DRM drivers assume that userspace restarts all IOCTLs. Any DRM IOCTL can + return EINTR and in such a case should be restarted with the IOCTL + parameters left unchanged. + +EIO: + The GPU died and couldn't be resurrected through a reset. Modesetting + hardware failures are signalled through the "link status" connector + property. + +EINVAL: + Catch-all for anything that is an invalid argument combination which + cannot work. + +IOCTL also use other error codes like ETIME, EFAULT, EBUSY, ENOTTY but their +usage is in line with the common meanings. The above list tries to just document +DRM specific patterns. Note that ENOTTY has the slightly unintuitive meaning of +"this IOCTL does not exist", and is used exactly as such in DRM. + +.. kernel-doc:: include/drm/drm_ioctl.h + :internal: + +.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/drm_ioctl.c + :export: + +.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/drm_ioc32.c + :export: + +Testing and validation +====================== + +Testing Requirements for userspace API +-------------------------------------- + +New cross-driver userspace interface extensions, like new IOCTL, new KMS +properties, new files in sysfs or anything else that constitutes an API change +should have driver-agnostic testcases in IGT for that feature, if such a test +can be reasonably made using IGT for the target hardware. + +Validating changes with IGT +--------------------------- + +There's a collection of tests that aims to cover the whole functionality of +DRM drivers and that can be used to check that changes to DRM drivers or the +core don't regress existing functionality. This test suite is called IGT and +its code and instructions to build and run can be found in +https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/igt-gpu-tools/. + +Using VKMS to test DRM API +-------------------------- + +VKMS is a software-only model of a KMS driver that is useful for testing +and for running compositors. VKMS aims to enable a virtual display without +the need for a hardware display capability. These characteristics made VKMS +a perfect tool for validating the DRM core behavior and also support the +compositor developer. VKMS makes it possible to test DRM functions in a +virtual machine without display, simplifying the validation of some of the +core changes. + +To Validate changes in DRM API with VKMS, start setting the kernel: make +sure to enable VKMS module; compile the kernel with the VKMS enabled and +install it in the target machine. VKMS can be run in a Virtual Machine +(QEMU, virtme or similar). It's recommended the use of KVM with the minimum +of 1GB of RAM and four cores. + +It's possible to run the IGT-tests in a VM in two ways: + + 1. Use IGT inside a VM + 2. Use IGT from the host machine and write the results in a shared directory. + +As follow, there is an example of using a VM with a shared directory with +the host machine to run igt-tests. As an example it's used virtme:: + + $ virtme-run --rwdir /path/for/shared_dir --kdir=path/for/kernel/directory --mods=auto + +Run the igt-tests in the guest machine, as example it's ran the 'kms_flip' +tests:: + + $ /path/for/igt-gpu-tools/scripts/run-tests.sh -p -s -t "kms_flip.*" -v + +In this example, instead of build the igt_runner, Piglit is used +(-p option); it's created html summary of the tests results and it's saved +in the folder "igt-gpu-tools/results"; it's executed only the igt-tests +matching the -t option. + +Display CRC Support +------------------- + +.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/drm_debugfs_crc.c + :doc: CRC ABI + +.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/drm_debugfs_crc.c + :export: + +Debugfs Support +--------------- + +.. kernel-doc:: include/drm/drm_debugfs.h + :internal: + +.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/drm_debugfs.c + :export: + +Sysfs Support +============= + +.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/drm_sysfs.c + :doc: overview + +.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/drm_sysfs.c + :export: + + +VBlank event handling +===================== + +The DRM core exposes two vertical blank related ioctls: + +DRM_IOCTL_WAIT_VBLANK + This takes a struct drm_wait_vblank structure as its argument, and + it is used to block or request a signal when a specified vblank + event occurs. + +DRM_IOCTL_MODESET_CTL + This was only used for user-mode-settind drivers around modesetting + changes to allow the kernel to update the vblank interrupt after + mode setting, since on many devices the vertical blank counter is + reset to 0 at some point during modeset. Modern drivers should not + call this any more since with kernel mode setting it is a no-op. + +Userspace API Structures +======================== + +.. kernel-doc:: include/uapi/drm/drm_mode.h + :doc: overview + +.. _crtc_index: + +CRTC index +---------- + +CRTC's have both an object ID and an index, and they are not the same thing. +The index is used in cases where a densely packed identifier for a CRTC is +needed, for instance a bitmask of CRTC's. The member possible_crtcs of struct +drm_mode_get_plane is an example. + +DRM_IOCTL_MODE_GETRESOURCES populates a structure with an array of CRTC ID's, +and the CRTC index is its position in this array. + +.. kernel-doc:: include/uapi/drm/drm.h + :internal: + +.. kernel-doc:: include/uapi/drm/drm_mode.h + :internal: |