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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/driver-api/driver-model/driver.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/driver-api/driver-model/driver.rst | 43 |
1 files changed, 43 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/driver-api/driver-model/driver.rst b/Documentation/driver-api/driver-model/driver.rst index 11d281506a04..baa6a85c8287 100644 --- a/Documentation/driver-api/driver-model/driver.rst +++ b/Documentation/driver-api/driver-model/driver.rst @@ -169,6 +169,49 @@ A driver's probe() may return a negative errno value to indicate that the driver did not bind to this device, in which case it should have released all resources it allocated:: + void (*sync_state)(struct device *dev); + +sync_state is called only once for a device. It's called when all the consumer +devices of the device have successfully probed. The list of consumers of the +device is obtained by looking at the device links connecting that device to its +consumer devices. + +The first attempt to call sync_state() is made during late_initcall_sync() to +give firmware and drivers time to link devices to each other. During the first +attempt at calling sync_state(), if all the consumers of the device at that +point in time have already probed successfully, sync_state() is called right +away. If there are no consumers of the device during the first attempt, that +too is considered as "all consumers of the device have probed" and sync_state() +is called right away. + +If during the first attempt at calling sync_state() for a device, there are +still consumers that haven't probed successfully, the sync_state() call is +postponed and reattempted in the future only when one or more consumers of the +device probe successfully. If during the reattempt, the driver core finds that +there are one or more consumers of the device that haven't probed yet, then +sync_state() call is postponed again. + +A typical use case for sync_state() is to have the kernel cleanly take over +management of devices from the bootloader. For example, if a device is left on +and at a particular hardware configuration by the bootloader, the device's +driver might need to keep the device in the boot configuration until all the +consumers of the device have probed. Once all the consumers of the device have +probed, the device's driver can synchronize the hardware state of the device to +match the aggregated software state requested by all the consumers. Hence the +name sync_state(). + +While obvious examples of resources that can benefit from sync_state() include +resources such as regulator, sync_state() can also be useful for complex +resources like IOMMUs. For example, IOMMUs with multiple consumers (devices +whose addresses are remapped by the IOMMU) might need to keep their mappings +fixed at (or additive to) the boot configuration until all its consumers have +probed. + +While the typical use case for sync_state() is to have the kernel cleanly take +over management of devices from the bootloader, the usage of sync_state() is +not restricted to that. Use it whenever it makes sense to take an action after +all the consumers of a device have probed. + int (*remove) (struct device *dev); remove is called to unbind a driver from a device. This may be |