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Message-ID: <44834c75-4db7-ec8a-9367-c6b83fa96b22@quicinc.com>
Date:   Wed, 19 Apr 2023 15:50:04 +0530
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Subject: Re: [PATCH V22 2/3] misc: dcc: Add driver support for Data Capture
 and Compare unit(DCC)
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To:     Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
CC:     Andy Gross <agross@kernel.org>,
        Konrad Dybcio <konrad.dybcio@somainline.org>,
        Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzysztof.kozlowski+dt@linaro.org>,
        Bjorn Andersson <andersson@kernel.org>,
        Rob Herring <robh+dt@kernel.org>, Alex Elder <elder@ieee.org>,
        <linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org>,
        <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>, <linux-arm-msm@vger.kernel.org>,
        <devicetree@vger.kernel.org>, Sibi Sankar <quic_sibis@quicinc.com>,
        Rajendra Nayak <quic_rjendra@quicinc.com>
References: <cover.1681829664.git.quic_schowdhu@quicinc.com>
 <e4f41fa61d9dd66f68bbd7650c6fbf96810c3569.1681829664.git.quic_schowdhu@quicinc.com>
 <2023041833-alienate-trash-f4da@gregkh>
 <f1456dd7-5dcf-d91a-459c-65efca4a3444@quicinc.com>
 <50844899-b047-42fd-807a-db7136e5e590@app.fastmail.com>
From:   Souradeep Chowdhury <quic_schowdhu@quicinc.com>
In-Reply-To: <50844899-b047-42fd-807a-db7136e5e590@app.fastmail.com>
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On 4/19/2023 1:00 PM, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 19, 2023, at 09:00, Souradeep Chowdhury wrote:
>> On 4/18/2023 9:15 PM, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
>>>
>>>> The following is the justification of using debugfs interface over the
>>>> other alternatives like sysfs/ioctls
>>>>
>>>> i) As can be seen from the debugfs attribute descriptions, some of the
>>>> debugfs attribute files here contains multiple arguments which needs to
>>>> be accepted from the user. This goes against the design style of sysfs.
>>>>
>>>> ii) The user input patterns have been made simple and convenient in this
>>>> case with the use of debugfs interface as user doesn't need to shuffle
>>>> between different files to execute one instruction as was the case on
>>>> using other alternatives.
>>>
>>> Why do you have debugfs and also a misc device?  How are they related?
>>> Why both?  Why not just one?  What userspace tools are going to use
>>> either of these interfaces and where are they published to show how this
>>> all was tested?
>>
>> DCC has two fundamental steps of usage:-
>>
>> 1.Configuring the register addresses on the dcc_sram which is done by
>> user through the debugfs interface. For example:-
>>
>> echo R 0x10c004 > /sys/kernel/debug/dcc/../3/config
>>
>> Here we are configuring the register addresses for list 3, the 'R'
>> indicates a read operation, so this register value will be read
>> in case of a software trigger or kernel panic/watchdog bite and
>> dumped into the dcc_sram.
> 
> Can you describe why the register location needs to be
> runtime configurable? I would have expected this type of setting
> to be part of the devicetree, which already describes other
> parts that interact with sram devices.

Register addresses are made runtime configurable to give the user the
option of going for a software trigger. So the user can debug issues
during run-time as well. These register locations are arbitrary
and is configured by the user for debugging purposes and is not related 
to the DCC hardware itself.

> 
> How does a user ensure that the address they configure does
> not overlap with some other use of the sram?

The dcc_sram is a dedicated io-memory for exclusive usage by dcc.
The register addresses are programmed in the dcc_sram corresponding
to a particular list and the start and end location on dcc_sram for
a particular list is updated in dcc hardware registers. So no two
lists can overlap. This is ensured by the driver code as follows:-

/* 3. Program DCC_RAM_CFG reg */
dcc_list_writel(drvdata, ram_cfg_base +
                        drvdata->ram_offset / 4, curr_list, DCC_LL_BASE);
dcc_list_writel(drvdata, drvdata->ram_start +
                         drvdata->ram_offset / 4, curr_list, DCC_FD_BASE);


> 
>      Arnd