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107 lines
4.2 KiB
Text
107 lines
4.2 KiB
Text
The Linux Kernel Device Model
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Patrick Mochel <mochel@digitalimplant.org>
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Drafted 26 August 2002
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Updated 31 January 2006
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Overview
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~~~~~~~~
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The Linux Kernel Driver Model is a unification of all the disparate driver
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models that were previously used in the kernel. It is intended to augment the
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bus-specific drivers for bridges and devices by consolidating a set of data
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and operations into globally accessible data structures.
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Traditional driver models implemented some sort of tree-like structure
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(sometimes just a list) for the devices they control. There wasn't any
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uniformity across the different bus types.
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The current driver model provides a common, uniform data model for describing
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a bus and the devices that can appear under the bus. The unified bus
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model includes a set of common attributes which all busses carry, and a set
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of common callbacks, such as device discovery during bus probing, bus
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shutdown, bus power management, etc.
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The common device and bridge interface reflects the goals of the modern
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computer: namely the ability to do seamless device "plug and play", power
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management, and hot plug. In particular, the model dictated by Intel and
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Microsoft (namely ACPI) ensures that almost every device on almost any bus
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on an x86-compatible system can work within this paradigm. Of course,
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not every bus is able to support all such operations, although most
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buses support a most of those operations.
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Downstream Access
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Common data fields have been moved out of individual bus layers into a common
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data structure. These fields must still be accessed by the bus layers,
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and sometimes by the device-specific drivers.
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Other bus layers are encouraged to do what has been done for the PCI layer.
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struct pci_dev now looks like this:
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struct pci_dev {
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...
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struct device dev;
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};
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Note first that it is statically allocated. This means only one allocation on
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device discovery. Note also that it is at the _end_ of struct pci_dev. This is
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to make people think about what they're doing when switching between the bus
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driver and the global driver; and to prevent against mindless casts between
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the two.
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The PCI bus layer freely accesses the fields of struct device. It knows about
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the structure of struct pci_dev, and it should know the structure of struct
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device. Individual PCI device drivers that have been converted to the current
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driver model generally do not and should not touch the fields of struct device,
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unless there is a strong compelling reason to do so.
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This abstraction is prevention of unnecessary pain during transitional phases.
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If the name of the field changes or is removed, then every downstream driver
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will break. On the other hand, if only the bus layer (and not the device
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layer) accesses struct device, it is only that layer that needs to change.
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User Interface
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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By virtue of having a complete hierarchical view of all the devices in the
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system, exporting a complete hierarchical view to userspace becomes relatively
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easy. This has been accomplished by implementing a special purpose virtual
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file system named sysfs. It is hence possible for the user to mount the
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whole sysfs filesystem anywhere in userspace.
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This can be done permanently by providing the following entry into the
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/etc/fstab (under the provision that the mount point does exist, of course):
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none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
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Or by hand on the command line:
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# mount -t sysfs sysfs /sys
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Whenever a device is inserted into the tree, a directory is created for it.
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This directory may be populated at each layer of discovery - the global layer,
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the bus layer, or the device layer.
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The global layer currently creates two files - 'name' and 'power'. The
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former only reports the name of the device. The latter reports the
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current power state of the device. It will also be used to set the current
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power state.
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The bus layer may also create files for the devices it finds while probing the
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bus. For example, the PCI layer currently creates 'irq' and 'resource' files
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for each PCI device.
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A device-specific driver may also export files in its directory to expose
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device-specific data or tunable interfaces.
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More information about the sysfs directory layout can be found in
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the other documents in this directory and in the file
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Documentation/filesystems/sysfs.txt.
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