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Subject: Re: dma-mapping: clearing GFP_ZERO flag caused crashes of Ethernet on
 arc/hsdk board.
To:     Andy Shevchenko <andy.shevchenko@gmail.com>, <hch@lst.de>
CC:     Evgeniy Didin <Evgeniy.Didin@synopsys.com>,
        "jesper.nilsson@axis.com" <jesper.nilsson@axis.com>,
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        <linux-snps-arc@lists.infradead.org>,
        Eugeniy Paltsev <Eugeniy.Paltsev@synopsys.com>,
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        "linux-mm@kvack.org" <linux-mm@kvack.org>
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 <CAHp75VeZSsdR1=ZhOM6jseYCP3m0GyE=8EjJUxWosze9BBw9rQ@mail.gmail.com>
From:   Vineet Gupta <Vineet.Gupta1@synopsys.com>
Message-ID: <a4bc637f-9464-c585-c6d2-663e2e38f18f@synopsys.com>
Date:   Tue, 27 Mar 2018 11:24:51 -0700
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Hi Christoph, Andy

On 03/27/2018 11:11 AM, Andy Shevchenko wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 8:12 PM, Evgeniy Didin
> <Evgeniy.Didin@synopsys.com> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> After commit  57bf5a8963f8 ("dma-mapping: clear harmful GFP_* flags in common code")  we noticed problems with Ethernet controller on one of our platforms (namely ARC HSDK).
>> I
>> n particular we see that removal of __GFP_ZERO flag in function dma_alloc_attrs() was the culprit because in our implementation of arc_dma_alloc() we only allocate zeroed pages if
>> that flag is explicitly set by the caller. Now with unconditional removal of that flag in dma_alloc_attrs() we allocate non-zeroed pages and that seem to cause problems.
>>
>> From
>> mentioned commit message I may conclude that architectural code is supposed to always allocate zeroed pages but I cannot find any requirement of that in kernel's documentation.
>> Coul
>> d you please point me to that requirement if that exists at all, then we'll implement a fix in our arch code like that:

[snip]

> Another question why caller can't ask for zero pages explicitly?

Question to whom ? The caller can ask for it - but the problem here is generic dma 
API code is clearing out GFP_ZERO and expecting arch code to memst unconditionally 
- is that expected of arch code - and is documented ?

That is broken to begin with - arch dma_alloc* simply passes thru gfp flags to 
page allocator and doesn't muck around with them. We could in theory but doesn't 
seem like the right thing to do IMO.

-Vineet