Re: [PATCH 1/2] dma-direct: Validate DMA mask against canonical DMA addresses

Aneesh Kumar K.V
2026-01-20T15:25:55Z

Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@ziepe.ca> writes:

> On Tue, Jan 20, 2026 at 12:12:54PM +0530, Aneesh Kumar K.V (Arm) wrote:
>> On systems that apply an address encryption tag or mask to DMA addresses,
>> DMA mask validation must be performed against the canonical DMA address.
>> Using a non-canonical (e.g. encrypted or unencrypted) DMA address
>> can incorrectly fail capability checks, since architecture-specific
>> encryption bits are not part of the device’s actual DMA addressing
>> capability. For example, arm64 adds PROT_NS_SHARED to unencrypted DMA
>> addresses.
>
> Huh?
>
> static inline dma_addr_t phys_to_dma_direct(struct device *dev,
> phys_addr_t phys)
> {
> if (force_dma_unencrypted(dev))
> return phys_to_dma_unencrypted(dev, phys);
> return phys_to_dma(dev, phys);
> }
>
> dma_addr_t swiotlb_map(struct device *dev, phys_addr_t paddr, size_t size,
> enum dma_data_direction dir, unsigned long attrs)
> {
> [..]
>
> /* Ensure that the address returned is DMA'ble */
> dma_addr = phys_to_dma_unencrypted(dev, swiotlb_addr);
> [..]
> return dma_addr;
> }
>
> The check in dma_direct_supported() is checking if the device's HW
> capability can contain the range of dma_addr_t's the DMA API will
> generate. Since it above is generating dma_addr_t's with the
> PROT_NS_SHARED set, it is correct to check it against the mask.
>
> If the IOVA does not contain PROT_NS_SHARED then I would expect all of
> the above to be removed too?
>
> Can you please explain what the probem is better?
>

There is no specific problem identified. The motivation for this change
is to ensure that the trusted device mask check is accurate.

>
> I just had a long talk with our internal people about this very
> subject and they were adament that the ARM design had the T=0 SMMU S2
> configured so that the IOVA starts at PROT_NS_SHARED, not 0. I am
> against this, I think it is a bad choice, and this patch is showing
> exactly why :)
>
> IMHO you should map the T=0 S2 so that the IOVA starts at 0 and we
> don't add PROT_NS_SHARED to the IOVA anyhwere.
>

But how will we support a trusted device access to both shared and
private memory? Commit 7d953a06241624ee2efb172d037a4168978f4147 goes
into some details w.r.t why PROT_NS_SHARED was added to dma_addr_t.

>
> This logic is going to be wrong for T=1 DMA to private memory though.
>
> Jason

-aneesh