mirror of https://gitee.com/openkylin/linux.git
91a6902958
Well, first of all, I don't want to change so many files either. What I do: Adding a new parameter "struct bin_attribute *" in the .read/.write methods for the sysfs binary attributes. In fact, only the four lines change in fs/sysfs/bin.c and include/linux/sysfs.h do the real work. But I have to update all the files that use binary attributes to make them compatible with the new .read and .write methods. I'm not sure if I missed any. :( Why I do this: For a sysfs attribute, we can get a pointer pointing to the struct attribute in the .show/.store method, while we can't do this for the binary attributes. I don't know why this is different, but this does make it not so handy to use the binary attributes as the regular ones. So I think this patch is reasonable. :) Who benefits from it: The patch that exposes ACPI tables in sysfs requires such an improvement. All the table binary attributes share the same .read method. Parameter "struct bin_attribute *" is used to get the table signature and instance number which are used to distinguish different ACPI table binary attributes. Without this parameter, we need to offer different .read methods for different ACPI table binary attributes. This is impossible as there are various ACPI tables on different platforms, and we don't know what they are until they are loaded. Signed-off-by: Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de> |
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| README | ||
| firmware_sample_driver.c | ||
| firmware_sample_firmware_class.c | ||
| hotplug-script | ||
README
request_firmware() hotplug interface:
------------------------------------
Copyright (C) 2003 Manuel Estrada Sainz
Why:
---
Today, the most extended way to use firmware in the Linux kernel is linking
it statically in a header file. Which has political and technical issues:
1) Some firmware is not legal to redistribute.
2) The firmware occupies memory permanently, even though it often is just
used once.
3) Some people, like the Debian crowd, don't consider some firmware free
enough and remove entire drivers (e.g.: keyspan).
High level behavior (mixed):
============================
kernel(driver): calls request_firmware(&fw_entry, $FIRMWARE, device)
userspace:
- /sys/class/firmware/xxx/{loading,data} appear.
- hotplug gets called with a firmware identifier in $FIRMWARE
and the usual hotplug environment.
- hotplug: echo 1 > /sys/class/firmware/xxx/loading
kernel: Discard any previous partial load.
userspace:
- hotplug: cat appropriate_firmware_image > \
/sys/class/firmware/xxx/data
kernel: grows a buffer in PAGE_SIZE increments to hold the image as it
comes in.
userspace:
- hotplug: echo 0 > /sys/class/firmware/xxx/loading
kernel: request_firmware() returns and the driver has the firmware
image in fw_entry->{data,size}. If something went wrong
request_firmware() returns non-zero and fw_entry is set to
NULL.
kernel(driver): Driver code calls release_firmware(fw_entry) releasing
the firmware image and any related resource.
High level behavior (driver code):
==================================
if(request_firmware(&fw_entry, $FIRMWARE, device) == 0)
copy_fw_to_device(fw_entry->data, fw_entry->size);
release(fw_entry);
Sample/simple hotplug script:
============================
# Both $DEVPATH and $FIRMWARE are already provided in the environment.
HOTPLUG_FW_DIR=/usr/lib/hotplug/firmware/
echo 1 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading
cat $HOTPLUG_FW_DIR/$FIRMWARE > /sysfs/$DEVPATH/data
echo 0 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading
Random notes:
============
- "echo -1 > /sys/class/firmware/xxx/loading" will cancel the load at
once and make request_firmware() return with error.
- firmware_data_read() and firmware_loading_show() are just provided
for testing and completeness, they are not called in normal use.
- There is also /sys/class/firmware/timeout which holds a timeout in
seconds for the whole load operation.
- request_firmware_nowait() is also provided for convenience in
non-user contexts.
about in-kernel persistence:
---------------------------
Under some circumstances, as explained below, it would be interesting to keep
firmware images in non-swappable kernel memory or even in the kernel image
(probably within initramfs).
Note that this functionality has not been implemented.
- Why OPTIONAL in-kernel persistence may be a good idea sometimes:
- If the device that needs the firmware is needed to access the
filesystem. When upon some error the device has to be reset and the
firmware reloaded, it won't be possible to get it from userspace.
e.g.:
- A diskless client with a network card that needs firmware.
- The filesystem is stored in a disk behind an scsi device
that needs firmware.
- Replacing buggy DSDT/SSDT ACPI tables on boot.
Note: this would require the persistent objects to be included
within the kernel image, probably within initramfs.
And the same device can be needed to access the filesystem or not depending
on the setup, so I think that the choice on what firmware to make
persistent should be left to userspace.