Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752160AbdI0SxP (ORCPT ); Wed, 27 Sep 2017 14:53:15 -0400 Received: from bhuna.collabora.co.uk ([46.235.227.227]:53090 "EHLO bhuna.collabora.co.uk" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751073AbdI0SxN (ORCPT ); Wed, 27 Sep 2017 14:53:13 -0400 Subject: Re: [media] vimc: API proposal, configuring the topology from user space To: Hans Verkuil , linux-media@vger.kernel.org Cc: Laurent Pinchart , Mauro Carvalho Chehab , Sakari Ailus , Jeremy Gebben , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: <73f4a527-1144-4b0d-a9db-e3fb153cc658@xs4all.nl> From: Helen Koike Message-ID: <852d7709-b6a3-e81b-e2a6-dd441f07344f@collabora.com> Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2017 15:53:04 -0300 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.3.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <73f4a527-1144-4b0d-a9db-e3fb153cc658@xs4all.nl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Language: en-US Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 8503 Lines: 234 Hi Hans, Thanks for your review. On 2017-07-28 10:39 AM, Hans Verkuil wrote: > Hi Helen, > > Finally after way too long I found some time to review this. See my comments > below. > > On 04/11/2017 12:53 AM, Helen Koike wrote: >> >> Hi, >> >> Continuing the discussion about the API of the vimc driver, I made some >> changes >> based on the previous comments, please see below and let me know your >> opinion about it. >> >> Helen >> >> /*********************** >> Configfs considerations: >> ************************/ >> Informal definitions: >> subsystem: the root driver folder in user space (/configfs/vimc) >> item: aka a folder in user space >> attributes: aka files in the folder >> group: aka a folder that can contain subfolders (parent and child relation) >> default group: aka a subfolder that is created automatically when the >> "parent" folder is created >> it is not considered a child in terms of rmdir >> >> * Performing rmdir in a group will fail if it contain children that are >> not default groups, i.e, if the >> folder contain subfolders that are default group, then it can be removed >> with rmdir, if the >> subfolders were created with mkdir, then rmdir in the parent will fail. >> >> * Configfs has the notion of committable item but it is not implemented >> yet. A committable item is an item >> that can be in one of two parent folders called: live and pending. The >> idea is to create and modify the item >> in the pending directory and then to move the item through a rename to >> the live directory where >> it can't be modified. This seems to be a nice feature for vimc, but as >> it is not available yet the >> proposal below won't be based on this. >> >> * Groups can be dynamically created/destroyed by the driver whenever it >> wants. Afaik attributes can only >> be created when the group or item is created and symlinks can only be >> create from user space, i.e, the >> driver don't know how to create/destroy attributes or symlinks in anytime. >> >> /*********************** >> The API: >> ************************/ >> >> In short, a topology like this one: http://goo.gl/Y7eUfu >> Would look like this filesystem tree: https://goo.gl/mEOmOf > > This mentions 'Yellow' lines, but since you dropped symlinks these no > longer exist. You probably need to update the legend. > Yes, thanks for noticing, I'll update when including it in the docs of the API. >> >> v3 core changes: >> - I removed the use of symlinks as I wans't able to see how to do it nicely. >> - I use the names of the folders created by user space to retrieve >> information at mkdir time >> - hotplug file in each entity >> - hotplug file in each device >> - reset file in each device >> >> * The /configfs/vimc subsystem >> empty when the driver is loaded > > I'm not sure about that. I think it would make sense that vimc when loaded > would make one instance, unless otherwise told via a module option. I don't think it really matters, the instance would be in unplugged state anyway and it would need to be configured, but sure, we can add a n_devs param as you proposed, no problem. > > Something like this (taken from vivid): > > parm: n_devs: number of driver instances to create (uint) > > By default this is 1, but can also be 0, 2, 3, etc. > >> >> * Create a device >> Userspace can create a new vimc device with: >> >> $ mkdir /configfs/vimc/any_name >> Example: >> $ mkdir /configfs/vimc/vimc0 >> $ ls -l /configfs/vimc/vimc0 >> hotplug >> reset >> entities/ >> links/ >> >> entities/ and links/ folder are default groups, thus they don't prevent >> rmdir vimc0/, but >> rmdir will fail if it has any child inside entities/ or links/. >> hotplug is used to plug and unplug the device, it can read "plugged" or >> "unplugged" and user can >> write "plug" or "unplug" to change its state. > > I would also support writing "plugged" and "unplugged". I.e. support both variants. > So it matches the values that you can read from the file, thanks for this suggestion. >> Changing hotplug state will never fail as the configfs tree will always >> be in a valid state. >> reset is used to easily destroy all the topology without the need to >> walk through all the children >> to perform rmdir, writing 1 to reset file will set hotplug to >> "unplugged" and erase all folders >> under entities/ and links/. >> >> * Create an entity >> Userspace can create a new entity with: >> >> $ mkdir /configfs/vimc/vimc0/entities/: >> Example: >> $ mkdir /configfs/vimc/vimc0/entities/sensor:SensorA >> $ ls -l /configfs/vimc/vimc0/entities/sensor:SensorA >> hotplug >> pad:source:0/ >> >> The name of the folder needs to be in the format : or it >> will be rejected, this allows the >> creation of the right pads according to its role at mkdir time, >> eliminating the previously proposed role >> and name files. >> hotplug is used to plug and unplug the hw block, it can read "plugged" >> or "unplugged" and user can >> write "plug" or "unplug" to change its state. As we don't support this >> yet in the media core, changing it >> will only be allowed if /configfs/vimc/vimc0/hotplug is "unplugged". >> hotplug file is "unplugged" by default. >> Pads will be created as default groups with the name in the format >> pad:: and it >> will be an empty folder. >> If the hw block supports different number of pads, we could expose two >> files: >> sinks >> sources >> where the user space can write the desired number of sink and source >> pads and the driver will dynamically >> create the folders pad:: >> >> * Create a link >> User space can create a link between two entities with: >> >> $ mkdir >> /configfs/vimc/vimc0/links/:->: >> Example: >> $ mkdir /configfs/vimc/vimc0/links/DebayerA:1->Scaler:0 >> $ ls -l /configfs/vimc/vimc0/links/DebayerA:1->Scaler:0 > > You need to escape '>' in the examples above. Or better, just put the whole argument > in '...' quotes. > >> flags >> >> mkdir will be rejected if folder is not on the format >> :->:. >> mkdir will be rejected if either or >> are not found in /configfs/vimc/vimc0/entities/ >> The link will only be created if both entities are in "plugged" state. >> When an entity is removed from /configfs/vimc/vimc0/entities/ with >> rmdir, its corresponding link folders at >> /configfs/vimc/vimc0/links will be automatically removed. >> If one of the entities changes from "plugged" to "unplugged", the link >> is only removed from the media >> representation, the link folder won't be removed. >> flags can be one of "", "enabled", "immutable", "dynamic", >> "dynamic,enabled". >> flags cannot be changed if the link was already created in the media >> controller, to alter it unplug the >> device through /configfs/vimc/vimc0/hotplug or unplug one of the source >> or sink entities connected to the >> link through its hotplug file. >> flags are of type "" by default. >> > > I'm a bit uncertain about the hotplug part. We don't really support this yet, so > why add this to vimc now? The idea is to make the testing workflow easier without the need to remove folders and re-adding them again, lets say you want to test the device with entity E and without it. Then if you want to test the device without entity E and without doing rmdir, we could do: $ echo unplug > /configfs/vimc/vimc0/hotplug $ echo unplug > /configfs/vimc/vimc0/configfs/vimc/vimc0/entities/sensor:E/hotplug $ echo plug > /configfs/vimc/vimc0/hotplug And to test it with E present in the device: $ echo unplug > /configfs/vimc/vimc0/hotplug $ echo plug > /configfs/vimc/vimc0/configfs/vimc/vimc0/entities/sensor:E/hotplug $ echo plug > /configfs/vimc/vimc0/hotplug So we don't loose our previous configuration, otherwise we would need to do and rmdir and then a mkdir+configurations_and_links when alternating between the two stages. As we don't support hotplug yet, we reject when the user tries to change the value of hotplug in a specific entity while the /configfs/vimc/vimc0/hotplug reads 'plugged'. The file /configfs/vimc/vimc0/configfs/vimc/vimc0/entities/sensor:E/hotplug just means: if 'unplugged', then pretend that entity E and all its associated links don't exist. Please, let me know if you see any other potential problem not mentioned above. Helen