From: Jacob Pan <jacob.pan@linux.microsoft.com>
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
"iommu@lists.linux.dev" <iommu@lists.linux.dev>,
Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@nvidia.com>,
Alex Williamson <alex@shazbot.org>,
Joerg Roedel <joro@8bytes.org>,
David Matlack <dmatlack@google.com>,
Nicolin Chen <nicolinc@nvidia.com>,
"Tian, Kevin" <kevin.tian@intel.com>, Yi Liu <yi.l.liu@intel.com>,
Baolu Lu <baolu.lu@linux.intel.com>
Cc: skhawaja@google.com, pasha.tatashin@soleen.com,
Jacob Pan <jacob.pan@linux.microsoft.com>,
Jean Philippe-Brucker <jean-philippe@linaro.org>,
Robin Murphy <robin.murphy@arm.com>
Subject: [PATCH 00/11] iommufd: Enable noiommu mode for cdev
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2026 09:52:36 -0800 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260227175247.26103-1-jacob.pan@linux.microsoft.com> (raw)
VFIO's unsafe_noiommu_mode has long provided a way for userspace drivers
to operate on platforms lacking a hardware IOMMU. Today, IOMMUFD also
supports No-IOMMU mode for group-based devices under vfio_compat mode.
However, IOMMUFD's native character device (cdev) does not yet support
No-IOMMU mode, which is the purpose of this patch.
In summary, we have:
|-------------------------+------+---------------|
| Device access mode | VFIO | IOMMUFD |
|-------------------------+------+---------------|
| group /dev/vfio/$GROUP | Yes | Yes |
|-------------------------+------+---------------|
| cdev /dev/vfio/devices/ | No | This patch |
|-------------------------+------+---------------|
Beyond enabling cdev for IOMMUFD, this patch also addresses the following
deficiencies in the current No-IOMMU mode suggested by Jason[1]:
- Devices operating under No-IOMMU mode are limited to device-level UAPI
access, without container or IOAS-level capabilities. Consequently,
user-space drivers lack structured mechanisms for page pinning and often
resort to mlock(), which is less robust than pin_user_pages() used for
devices backed by a physical IOMMU. For example, mlock() does not prevent
page migration.
- There is no architectural mechanism for obtaining physical addresses for
DMA. As a workaround, user-space drivers frequently rely on /proc/pagemap
tricks or hardcoded values.
By allowing noiommu device access to IOMMUFD IOAS and HWPT objects, this
patch brings No-IOMMU mode closer to full citizenship within the IOMMU
subsystem. In addition to addressing the two deficiencies mentioned above,
the expectation is that it will also enable No-IOMMU devices to seamlessly
participate in live update sessions via KHO [2].
Furthermore, these devices will use the IOMMUFD-based ownership checking model for
VFIO_DEVICE_PCI_HOT_RESET, eliminating the need for an iommufd_access object
as required in a previous attempt [3].
ChangeLog:
Since RFC[4]:
- Abandoned dummy iommu driver approach as patch 1-3 absorbed the
changes into iommufd.
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-iommu/20250603175403.GA407344@nvidia.com/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-pci/20251027134430.00007e46@linux.microsoft.com/
[3] https://lore.kernel.org/kvm/20230522115751.326947-1-yi.l.liu@intel.com/
[4] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-iommu/20251201173012.18371-1-jacob.pan@linux.microsoft.com/
Thanks,
Jacob
Jacob Pan (8):
iommufd: Add an ioctl IOMMU_IOAS_GET_PA to query PA from IOVA
vfio: Allow null group for noiommu without containers
vfio: Introduce and set noiommu flag on vfio_device
vfio: Update noiommu device detection logic for cdev
vfio: Enable cdev noiommu mode under iommufd
vfio:selftest: Handle VFIO noiommu cdev
selftests/vfio: Add iommufd noiommu mode selftest for cdev
Doc: Update VFIO NOIOMMU mode
Jason Gunthorpe (3):
iommufd: Support a HWPT without an iommu driver for noiommu
iommufd: Move igroup allocation to a function
iommufd: Allow binding to a noiommu device
Documentation/driver-api/vfio.rst | 44 +-
drivers/iommu/iommufd/Makefile | 1 +
drivers/iommu/iommufd/device.c | 161 ++++--
drivers/iommu/iommufd/hw_pagetable.c | 11 +-
drivers/iommu/iommufd/hwpt_noiommu.c | 91 +++
drivers/iommu/iommufd/io_pagetable.c | 39 ++
drivers/iommu/iommufd/ioas.c | 22 +
drivers/iommu/iommufd/iommufd_private.h | 5 +
drivers/iommu/iommufd/main.c | 3 +
drivers/vfio/Kconfig | 6 +-
drivers/vfio/group.c | 35 +-
drivers/vfio/iommufd.c | 7 -
drivers/vfio/vfio.h | 34 +-
drivers/vfio/vfio_main.c | 22 +-
include/linux/vfio.h | 10 +
include/uapi/linux/iommufd.h | 25 +
tools/testing/selftests/vfio/Makefile | 1 +
.../selftests/vfio/lib/vfio_pci_device.c | 25 +-
.../vfio/vfio_iommufd_noiommu_test.c | 540 ++++++++++++++++++
19 files changed, 990 insertions(+), 92 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 drivers/iommu/iommufd/hwpt_noiommu.c
create mode 100644 tools/testing/selftests/vfio/vfio_iommufd_noiommu_test.c
--
2.34.1
next reply other threads:[~2026-02-27 17:52 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 21+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-02-27 17:52 Jacob Pan [this message]
2026-02-27 17:52 ` [PATCH 01/11] iommufd: Support a HWPT without an iommu driver for noiommu Jacob Pan
2026-02-27 17:52 ` [PATCH 02/11] iommufd: Move igroup allocation to a function Jacob Pan
2026-02-27 17:52 ` [PATCH 03/11] iommufd: Allow binding to a noiommu device Jacob Pan
2026-02-27 17:52 ` [PATCH 04/11] iommufd: Add an ioctl IOMMU_IOAS_GET_PA to query PA from IOVA Jacob Pan
2026-02-27 17:52 ` [PATCH 05/11] vfio: Allow null group for noiommu without containers Jacob Pan
2026-02-27 17:52 ` [PATCH 06/11] vfio: Introduce and set noiommu flag on vfio_device Jacob Pan
2026-02-27 17:52 ` [PATCH 07/11] vfio: Update noiommu device detection logic for cdev Jacob Pan
2026-02-27 17:52 ` [PATCH 08/11] vfio: Enable cdev noiommu mode under iommufd Jacob Pan
2026-02-27 22:03 ` kernel test robot
2026-02-28 0:18 ` kernel test robot
2026-02-28 0:35 ` Jason Gunthorpe
2026-03-05 23:26 ` Jacob Pan
2026-03-05 23:38 ` Jason Gunthorpe
2026-03-12 16:33 ` Jacob Pan
2026-02-28 0:29 ` kernel test robot
2026-02-27 17:52 ` [PATCH 09/11] vfio:selftest: Handle VFIO noiommu cdev Jacob Pan
2026-02-27 17:52 ` [PATCH 10/11] selftests/vfio: Add iommufd noiommu mode selftest for cdev Jacob Pan
2026-02-27 17:52 ` [PATCH 11/11] Doc: Update VFIO NOIOMMU mode Jacob Pan
2026-03-03 0:35 ` [PATCH 00/11] iommufd: Enable noiommu mode for cdev Jason Gunthorpe
2026-03-03 19:13 ` Jacob Pan
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