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The allocator shown here exploits high memory. This document explains
how a user can deal with drivers uses this allocator and how a
programmer can link in the module.
The module is being used by my pxc and pxdrv device drivers (as well as
other ones), available from ftp.systemy.it/pub/develop and
ftp.linux.it/pub/People/Rubini
User's manual
=============
One of the most compelling problems with any DMA-capable device is the
allocation of a suitable memory buffer. The "allocator" module tries
to deal with the problem in a clean way. The module is able to use
high memory (above the one used in normal operation) for DMA
allocation.
To prevent the kernel for using high memory, so that it remains
available for DMA, you should pass a command line argument to the
kernel. Command line arguments can be passed to Lilo, to Loadlin or
to whichever loader you are using (unless it's very poor in design).
For Lilo, either use "append=" in /etc/lilo.conf or add commandline
arguments to the interactive prompt. For example, I have a 32MB box
and reserve two megs for DMA:
In lilo.conf:
image = /zImage
label = linux
append = "mem=30M"
Or, interactively:
LILO: linux mem=30M
Once the kernel is booted with the right command-line argument, any
driver linked with the allocator module will be able to get
DMA-capable memory without much trouble (unless the various drivers
need more memory than available).
The module implements an alloc/free mechanism, so that it can serve
multiple drivers at the same time. Note however that the allocator
uses all of high memory and assumes to be the only piece of software
using such memory.
Programmer's manual
===================
The allocator, as released, is designed to be linked to a device
driver. In this case, the driver must call allocator_init() before
using the allocator and must call allocator_cleanup() before
unloading. This is usually done from within init_module() and
cleanup_module(). If the allocator is linked to a driver, it won't be
possible for several drivers to allocate high DMA memory, as explained
above.
It is possible, on the other hand, to compile the module as a standalone
module, so that several modules can rely on the allocator for they DMA
buffers. To compile the allocator as a standalone module, do the
following in this directory (or provide a suitable Makefile, or edit
the source code):
make allocator.o CC="gcc -Dallocator_init=init_module -Dallocator_cleanup=cleanup_module -include /usr/include/linux/module.h"
The previous commandline tells to include <linux/module.h> in the
first place, and to rename the init and cleanup function to the ones
needed for module loading and unloading. Drivers using a standalone
allocator won't need to call allocator_init() nor allocator_cleanup().
The allocator exports the following functions (declared in allocator.h):
unsigned long allocator_allocate_dma (unsigned long kilobytes,
int priority);
This function returns a physical address, over high_memory,
which corresponds to an area of at least "kilobytes" kilobytes.
The area will be owned by the module calling the function.
The returned address can be passed to device boards, to instruct
their DMA controllers, via phys_to_bus(). The address can be used
by C code after vremap()/ioremap(). The "priority" argument should
be GFP_KERNEL or GFP_ATOMIC, according to the context of the
caller; it is used to call kmalloc(), as the allocator must keep
track of any region it gives away. In case of error the function
returns 0, and the caller is expected to issue a -ENOMEM error.
void allocator_free_dma (unsigned long address);
This function is the reverse of the previous one. If a driver
doesn't free the DMA memory it allocated, the allocator will
consider such memory as busy. Note, however, that
allocator_cleanup() calls kfree() on every region it reclaimed,
so that a driver with the allocator linked in can avoid calling
allocator_free_dma() at unload time.
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