【Question】Whether it's legal to enable same physical DMA memory mapped for different NIC device?

【Question】Whether it's legal to enable same physical DMA memory mapped for different NIC device?

[ustc.mail]

Dear all,

In NIC driver, to eliminate the  overhead of dma_map_single() for DMA
packet data,  we have statically allocated huge DMA memory buffer ring
at once instead of calling dma_map_single() per packet.  Considering
to further reduce the copy overhead between different NIC(port) ring
while forwarding, one packet from a input NIC(port) will be
transferred to output NIC(port) with no any copy action.

To satisfy this requirement, the packet memory should be mapped into
input port and unmapped when leaving input port, then mapped into
output port and unmapped later.

Whether it's legal to map the same DMA memory into input and output
port simultaneously? If it's not, then the zero-copy for packet
forwarding is not feasible?

Hope PCI expert to post your suggestion.

Thanks!

--Yanfei

Re: 【Question】Whether it's legal to enable same physical DMA memory mapped for different NIC device?

[Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk]

On Wed, Dec 07, 2011 at 10:16:40PM +0800, ustc.mail wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> In NIC driver, to eliminate the  overhead of dma_map_single() for DMA
> packet data,  we have statically allocated huge DMA memory buffer ring
> at once instead of calling dma_map_single() per packet.  Considering
> to further reduce the copy overhead between different NIC(port) ring
> while forwarding, one packet from a input NIC(port) will be
> transferred to output NIC(port) with no any copy action.
> 
> To satisfy this requirement, the packet memory should be mapped into
> input port and unmapped when leaving input port, then mapped into
> output port and unmapped later.
> 
> Whether it's legal to map the same DMA memory into input and output
> port simultaneously? If it's not, then the zero-copy for packet
> forwarding is not feasible?
> 

Did you ever a get a response about this?

Is the output/input port on a seperate device function? Or is it
just a specific MMIO BAR in your PCI device?

> Hope PCI expert to post your suggestion.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> --Yanfei
> 
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-pci" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: 【Question】Whether it's legal to enable same physical DMA memory mapped for different NIC device?

[Yanfei Wang]

On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 4:33 AM, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
<konrad.wilk@oracle.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 07, 2011 at 10:16:40PM +0800, ustc.mail wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> In NIC driver, to eliminate the  overhead of dma_map_single() for DMA
>> packet data,  we have statically allocated huge DMA memory buffer ring
>> at once instead of calling dma_map_single() per packet.  Considering
>> to further reduce the copy overhead between different NIC(port) ring
>> while forwarding, one packet from a input NIC(port) will be
>> transferred to output NIC(port) with no any copy action.
>>
>> To satisfy this requirement, the packet memory should be mapped into
>> input port and unmapped when leaving input port, then mapped into
>> output port and unmapped later.
>>
>> Whether it's legal to map the same DMA memory into input and output
>> port simultaneously? If it's not, then the zero-copy for packet
>> forwarding is not feasible?
>>
>
> Did you ever a get a response about this?
No.
>
> Is the output/input port on a seperate device function? Or is it
> just a specific MMIO BAR in your PCI device?
>
Platform: x86, intel nehalem 8Core NUMA, linux 2.6.39, 10G
82599NIC(two ports per NIC card);
Function: Forwarding packets between different ports.
Targets: Forwarding packets with Zero-Overhead, despite other obstacles.

--Yanfei
>> Hope PCI expert to post your suggestion.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> --Yanfei
>>
>> --
>> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-pci" in
>> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-arch" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: 【Question】Whether it's legal to enable same physical DMA memory mapped for different NIC device?

[James Bottomley]

On Wed, 2012-01-04 at 10:44 +0800, Yanfei Wang wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 4:33 AM, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
> <konrad.wilk@oracle.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, Dec 07, 2011 at 10:16:40PM +0800, ustc.mail wrote:
> >> Dear all,
> >>
> >> In NIC driver, to eliminate the  overhead of dma_map_single() for DMA
> >> packet data,  we have statically allocated huge DMA memory buffer ring
> >> at once instead of calling dma_map_single() per packet.  Considering
> >> to further reduce the copy overhead between different NIC(port) ring
> >> while forwarding, one packet from a input NIC(port) will be
> >> transferred to output NIC(port) with no any copy action.
> >>
> >> To satisfy this requirement, the packet memory should be mapped into
> >> input port and unmapped when leaving input port, then mapped into
> >> output port and unmapped later.
> >>
> >> Whether it's legal to map the same DMA memory into input and output
> >> port simultaneously? If it's not, then the zero-copy for packet
> >> forwarding is not feasible?
> >>
> >
> > Did you ever a get a response about this?
> No.

This is probably because no-one really understands what you're asking.
As far as mapping memory to PCI devices goes, it's the job of the bridge
(or the iommu which may or may not be part of the bridge).  A standard
iommu tends not to care about devices and functions, so a range once
mapped is available to everything behind the bridge.  A more secure
virtualisation based iommu (like the on in VT-D) does, and tends to map
ranges per device.  I know of none that map per device and function, but
maybe there are.

Your question reads like you have a range of memory mapped to a PCI
device that you want to use for two different purposes, can you do this?
to which the answer is that a standard PCI bridge really doesn't care
and it all depends on the mechanics of the actual device.  The only
wrinkle might be if the two different purposes are on two separate PCI
functions of the device and the iommu does care.

> >
> > Is the output/input port on a seperate device function? Or is it
> > just a specific MMIO BAR in your PCI device?
> >
> Platform: x86, intel nehalem 8Core NUMA, linux 2.6.39, 10G
> 82599NIC(two ports per NIC card);
> Function: Forwarding packets between different ports.
> Targets: Forwarding packets with Zero-Overhead, despite other obstacles.

This still doesn't really provide the information needed to elucidate
the question.

James

Re: 【Question】Whether it's legal to enable same physical DMA memory mapped for different NIC device?

[Yanfei Wang]

On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 11:59 PM, James Bottomley
<James.Bottomley@hansenpartnership.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2012-01-04 at 10:44 +0800, Yanfei Wang wrote:
>> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 4:33 AM, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
>> <konrad.wilk@oracle.com> wrote:
>> > On Wed, Dec 07, 2011 at 10:16:40PM +0800, ustc.mail wrote:
>> >> Dear all,
>> >>
>> >> In NIC driver, to eliminate the  overhead of dma_map_single() for DMA
>> >> packet data,  we have statically allocated huge DMA memory buffer ring
>> >> at once instead of calling dma_map_single() per packet.  Considering
>> >> to further reduce the copy overhead between different NIC(port) ring
>> >> while forwarding, one packet from a input NIC(port) will be
>> >> transferred to output NIC(port) with no any copy action.
>> >>
>> >> To satisfy this requirement, the packet memory should be mapped into
>> >> input port and unmapped when leaving input port, then mapped into
>> >> output port and unmapped later.
>> >>
>> >> Whether it's legal to map the same DMA memory into input and output
>> >> port simultaneously? If it's not, then the zero-copy for packet
>> >> forwarding is not feasible?
>> >>
>> >
>> > Did you ever a get a response about this?
>> No.
>
> This is probably because no-one really understands what you're asking.
> As far as mapping memory to PCI devices goes, it's the job of the bridge
> (or the iommu which may or may not be part of the bridge).  A standard
> iommu tends not to care about devices and functions, so a range once
> mapped is available to everything behind the bridge.  A more secure
> virtualisation based iommu (like the on in VT-D) does, and tends to map
> ranges per device.  I know of none that map per device and function, but
> maybe there are.
>
> Your question reads like you have a range of memory mapped to a PCI
> device that you want to use for two different purposes, can you do this?
> to which the answer is that a standard PCI bridge really doesn't care
> and it all depends on the mechanics of the actual device.  The only
> wrinkle might be if the two different purposes are on two separate PCI
> functions of the device and the iommu does care.
>
>> >
>> > Is the output/input port on a seperate device function? Or is it
>> > just a specific MMIO BAR in your PCI device?
>> >
>> Platform: x86, intel nehalem 8Core NUMA, linux 2.6.39, 10G
>> 82599NIC(two ports per NIC card);
>> Function: Forwarding packets between different ports.
>> Targets: Forwarding packets with Zero-Overhead, despite other obstacles.
Besides hardware and OS presented above, more detailed descriptions as follows,

When IXGBE driver do initialization, DMA Descriptors Ring Buffers are
allocated statically and mapped as cache coherent. Instead of
dynamically allocating skb buffers for packet data, to reduce the huge
overhead from skb memory allocation, huge Packet data buffers are
pre-allocated and mapped  when driver is loaded. The same strategy  is
done for RX end and TX end.
For simple packet forwarding application, one packet from RX should be
replicated from kernel space to userspace, then copied TX end. Here,
One packet at least, should be copied twice to accomplish forwarding.
When doing high performance network application,  the copy action want
to be reduced. If Zero-copy can be done, that's better. (May be you
will find that Zero-copy will bring other obstacles, such as memory
management overhead with high performance. We do not care about it
temporally.)
To achieve this goal, a alternative approach is that,  unmapping the
packets buffer after receiving it from A device, then mapping this
packet buffer to B device. We hope to reduce the two mapping
operation, so one packet DMA buffer should be mapped to A device(NIC
port) as well as B device simultaneously.
Q: Can this come to ture? Is it legal for mmaping operation at this platform?

Thanks.

Yanfei


>
> This still doesn't really provide the information needed to elucidate
> the question.
>
> James
>
>
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-arch" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: 【Question】Whether it's legal to enable same physical DMA memory mapped for different NIC device?

[James Bottomley]

On Thu, 2012-01-05 at 20:40 +0800, Yanfei Wang wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 11:59 PM, James Bottomley
> <James.Bottomley@hansenpartnership.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, 2012-01-04 at 10:44 +0800, Yanfei Wang wrote:
> >> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 4:33 AM, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
> >> <konrad.wilk@oracle.com> wrote:
> >> > On Wed, Dec 07, 2011 at 10:16:40PM +0800, ustc.mail wrote:
> >> >> Dear all,
> >> >>
> >> >> In NIC driver, to eliminate the  overhead of dma_map_single() for DMA
> >> >> packet data,  we have statically allocated huge DMA memory buffer ring
> >> >> at once instead of calling dma_map_single() per packet.  Considering
> >> >> to further reduce the copy overhead between different NIC(port) ring
> >> >> while forwarding, one packet from a input NIC(port) will be
> >> >> transferred to output NIC(port) with no any copy action.
> >> >>
> >> >> To satisfy this requirement, the packet memory should be mapped into
> >> >> input port and unmapped when leaving input port, then mapped into
> >> >> output port and unmapped later.
> >> >>
> >> >> Whether it's legal to map the same DMA memory into input and output
> >> >> port simultaneously? If it's not, then the zero-copy for packet
> >> >> forwarding is not feasible?
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > Did you ever a get a response about this?
> >> No.
> >
> > This is probably because no-one really understands what you're asking.
> > As far as mapping memory to PCI devices goes, it's the job of the bridge
> > (or the iommu which may or may not be part of the bridge).  A standard
> > iommu tends not to care about devices and functions, so a range once
> > mapped is available to everything behind the bridge.  A more secure
> > virtualisation based iommu (like the on in VT-D) does, and tends to map
> > ranges per device.  I know of none that map per device and function, but
> > maybe there are.
> >
> > Your question reads like you have a range of memory mapped to a PCI
> > device that you want to use for two different purposes, can you do this?
> > to which the answer is that a standard PCI bridge really doesn't care
> > and it all depends on the mechanics of the actual device.  The only
> > wrinkle might be if the two different purposes are on two separate PCI
> > functions of the device and the iommu does care.
> >
> >> >
> >> > Is the output/input port on a seperate device function? Or is it
> >> > just a specific MMIO BAR in your PCI device?
> >> >
> >> Platform: x86, intel nehalem 8Core NUMA, linux 2.6.39, 10G
> >> 82599NIC(two ports per NIC card);
> >> Function: Forwarding packets between different ports.
> >> Targets: Forwarding packets with Zero-Overhead, despite other obstacles.
> Besides hardware and OS presented above, more detailed descriptions as follows,
> 
> When IXGBE driver do initialization, DMA Descriptors Ring Buffers are
> allocated statically and mapped as cache coherent. Instead of
> dynamically allocating skb buffers for packet data, to reduce the huge
> overhead from skb memory allocation, huge Packet data buffers are
> pre-allocated and mapped  when driver is loaded. The same strategy  is
> done for RX end and TX end.
> For simple packet forwarding application, one packet from RX should be
> replicated from kernel space to userspace, then copied TX end. Here,
> One packet at least, should be copied twice to accomplish forwarding.
> When doing high performance network application,  the copy action want
> to be reduced. If Zero-copy can be done, that's better. (May be you
> will find that Zero-copy will bring other obstacles, such as memory
> management overhead with high performance. We do not care about it
> temporally.)
> To achieve this goal, a alternative approach is that,  unmapping the
> packets buffer after receiving it from A device, then mapping this
> packet buffer to B device. We hope to reduce the two mapping
> operation, so one packet DMA buffer should be mapped to A device(NIC
> port) as well as B device simultaneously.
> Q: Can this come to ture? Is it legal for mmaping operation at this platform?

But you still haven't answered the question upon which all this depends.
Let me make it simple.  In PCI terms are A and B

     I. Same Device, Same Function
    II. Same Device, Different Function
   III. Different Devices

?

James

Re: 【Question】Whether it's legal to enable same physical DMA memory mapped for different NIC device?

[Yanfei Wang]

On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 12:20 AM, James Bottomley
<James.Bottomley@hansenpartnership.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2012-01-05 at 20:40 +0800, Yanfei Wang wrote:
>> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 11:59 PM, James Bottomley
>> <James.Bottomley@hansenpartnership.com> wrote:
>> > On Wed, 2012-01-04 at 10:44 +0800, Yanfei Wang wrote:
>> >> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 4:33 AM, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
>> >> <konrad.wilk@oracle.com> wrote:
>> >> > On Wed, Dec 07, 2011 at 10:16:40PM +0800, ustc.mail wrote:
>> >> >> Dear all,
>> >> >>
>> >> >> In NIC driver, to eliminate the  overhead of dma_map_single() for DMA
>> >> >> packet data,  we have statically allocated huge DMA memory buffer ring
>> >> >> at once instead of calling dma_map_single() per packet.  Considering
>> >> >> to further reduce the copy overhead between different NIC(port) ring
>> >> >> while forwarding, one packet from a input NIC(port) will be
>> >> >> transferred to output NIC(port) with no any copy action.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> To satisfy this requirement, the packet memory should be mapped into
>> >> >> input port and unmapped when leaving input port, then mapped into
>> >> >> output port and unmapped later.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Whether it's legal to map the same DMA memory into input and output
>> >> >> port simultaneously? If it's not, then the zero-copy for packet
>> >> >> forwarding is not feasible?
>> >> >>
>> >> >
>> >> > Did you ever a get a response about this?
>> >> No.
>> >
>> > This is probably because no-one really understands what you're asking.
>> > As far as mapping memory to PCI devices goes, it's the job of the bridge
>> > (or the iommu which may or may not be part of the bridge).  A standard
>> > iommu tends not to care about devices and functions, so a range once
>> > mapped is available to everything behind the bridge.  A more secure
>> > virtualisation based iommu (like the on in VT-D) does, and tends to map
>> > ranges per device.  I know of none that map per device and function, but
>> > maybe there are.
>> >
>> > Your question reads like you have a range of memory mapped to a PCI
>> > device that you want to use for two different purposes, can you do this?
>> > to which the answer is that a standard PCI bridge really doesn't care
>> > and it all depends on the mechanics of the actual device.  The only
>> > wrinkle might be if the two different purposes are on two separate PCI
>> > functions of the device and the iommu does care.
>> >
>> >> >
>> >> > Is the output/input port on a seperate device function? Or is it
>> >> > just a specific MMIO BAR in your PCI device?
>> >> >
>> >> Platform: x86, intel nehalem 8Core NUMA, linux 2.6.39, 10G
>> >> 82599NIC(two ports per NIC card);
>> >> Function: Forwarding packets between different ports.
>> >> Targets: Forwarding packets with Zero-Overhead, despite other obstacles.
>> Besides hardware and OS presented above, more detailed descriptions as follows,
>>
>> When IXGBE driver do initialization, DMA Descriptors Ring Buffers are
>> allocated statically and mapped as cache coherent. Instead of
>> dynamically allocating skb buffers for packet data, to reduce the huge
>> overhead from skb memory allocation, huge Packet data buffers are
>> pre-allocated and mapped  when driver is loaded. The same strategy  is
>> done for RX end and TX end.
>> For simple packet forwarding application, one packet from RX should be
>> replicated from kernel space to userspace, then copied TX end. Here,
>> One packet at least, should be copied twice to accomplish forwarding.
>> When doing high performance network application,  the copy action want
>> to be reduced. If Zero-copy can be done, that's better. (May be you
>> will find that Zero-copy will bring other obstacles, such as memory
>> management overhead with high performance. We do not care about it
>> temporally.)
>> To achieve this goal, a alternative approach is that,  unmapping the
>> packets buffer after receiving it from A device, then mapping this
>> packet buffer to B device. We hope to reduce the two mapping
>> operation, so one packet DMA buffer should be mapped to A device(NIC
>> port) as well as B device simultaneously.
>> Q: Can this come to ture? Is it legal for mmaping operation at this platform?
>
> But you still haven't answered the question upon which all this depends.
> Let me make it simple.  In PCI terms are A and B
>
>     I. Same Device, Same Function
>    II. Same Device, Different Function
>   III. Different Devices
$lspci
09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82599EB 10-Gigabit
Network Connection (rev 01)
09:00.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82599EB 10-Gigabit
Network Connection (rev 01)
Here, only one physical 10G NIC device, which contains two 10G ports.
So, the information list above shows that one port correspond one
function.
If forwarding packet between two ports, then A,B are different functions.
Otherwise, A,B are different devices if forwarding packets between two
physical NIC device. Is it right?
The OS is built on bare-metal hardware, no kvm, no xen, no VT.

Thanks.
>
> ?
>
> James
>
>

Re: 【Question】Whether it's legal to enable same physical DMA memory mapped for different NIC device?

[James Bottomley]

On Fri, 2012-01-06 at 10:05 +0800, Yanfei Wang wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 12:20 AM, James Bottomley
> <James.Bottomley@hansenpartnership.com> wrote:
> > On Thu, 2012-01-05 at 20:40 +0800, Yanfei Wang wrote:
> >> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 11:59 PM, James Bottomley
> >> <James.Bottomley@hansenpartnership.com> wrote:
> >> > On Wed, 2012-01-04 at 10:44 +0800, Yanfei Wang wrote:
> >> >> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 4:33 AM, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
> >> >> <konrad.wilk@oracle.com> wrote:
> >> >> > On Wed, Dec 07, 2011 at 10:16:40PM +0800, ustc.mail wrote:
> >> >> >> Dear all,
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> In NIC driver, to eliminate the  overhead of dma_map_single() for DMA
> >> >> >> packet data,  we have statically allocated huge DMA memory buffer ring
> >> >> >> at once instead of calling dma_map_single() per packet.  Considering
> >> >> >> to further reduce the copy overhead between different NIC(port) ring
> >> >> >> while forwarding, one packet from a input NIC(port) will be
> >> >> >> transferred to output NIC(port) with no any copy action.
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> To satisfy this requirement, the packet memory should be mapped into
> >> >> >> input port and unmapped when leaving input port, then mapped into
> >> >> >> output port and unmapped later.
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> Whether it's legal to map the same DMA memory into input and output
> >> >> >> port simultaneously? If it's not, then the zero-copy for packet
> >> >> >> forwarding is not feasible?
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Did you ever a get a response about this?
> >> >> No.
> >> >
> >> > This is probably because no-one really understands what you're asking.
> >> > As far as mapping memory to PCI devices goes, it's the job of the bridge
> >> > (or the iommu which may or may not be part of the bridge).  A standard
> >> > iommu tends not to care about devices and functions, so a range once
> >> > mapped is available to everything behind the bridge.  A more secure
> >> > virtualisation based iommu (like the on in VT-D) does, and tends to map
> >> > ranges per device.  I know of none that map per device and function, but
> >> > maybe there are.
> >> >
> >> > Your question reads like you have a range of memory mapped to a PCI
> >> > device that you want to use for two different purposes, can you do this?
> >> > to which the answer is that a standard PCI bridge really doesn't care
> >> > and it all depends on the mechanics of the actual device.  The only
> >> > wrinkle might be if the two different purposes are on two separate PCI
> >> > functions of the device and the iommu does care.
> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Is the output/input port on a seperate device function? Or is it
> >> >> > just a specific MMIO BAR in your PCI device?
> >> >> >
> >> >> Platform: x86, intel nehalem 8Core NUMA, linux 2.6.39, 10G
> >> >> 82599NIC(two ports per NIC card);
> >> >> Function: Forwarding packets between different ports.
> >> >> Targets: Forwarding packets with Zero-Overhead, despite other obstacles.
> >> Besides hardware and OS presented above, more detailed descriptions as follows,
> >>
> >> When IXGBE driver do initialization, DMA Descriptors Ring Buffers are
> >> allocated statically and mapped as cache coherent. Instead of
> >> dynamically allocating skb buffers for packet data, to reduce the huge
> >> overhead from skb memory allocation, huge Packet data buffers are
> >> pre-allocated and mapped  when driver is loaded. The same strategy  is
> >> done for RX end and TX end.
> >> For simple packet forwarding application, one packet from RX should be
> >> replicated from kernel space to userspace, then copied TX end. Here,
> >> One packet at least, should be copied twice to accomplish forwarding.
> >> When doing high performance network application,  the copy action want
> >> to be reduced. If Zero-copy can be done, that's better. (May be you
> >> will find that Zero-copy will bring other obstacles, such as memory
> >> management overhead with high performance. We do not care about it
> >> temporally.)
> >> To achieve this goal, a alternative approach is that,  unmapping the
> >> packets buffer after receiving it from A device, then mapping this
> >> packet buffer to B device. We hope to reduce the two mapping
> >> operation, so one packet DMA buffer should be mapped to A device(NIC
> >> port) as well as B device simultaneously.
> >> Q: Can this come to ture? Is it legal for mmaping operation at this platform?
> >
> > But you still haven't answered the question upon which all this depends.
> > Let me make it simple.  In PCI terms are A and B
> >
> >     I. Same Device, Same Function
> >    II. Same Device, Different Function
> >   III. Different Devices
> $lspci
> 09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82599EB 10-Gigabit
> Network Connection (rev 01)
> 09:00.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82599EB 10-Gigabit
> Network Connection (rev 01)
> Here, only one physical 10G NIC device, which contains two 10G ports.
> So, the information list above shows that one port correspond one
> function.
> If forwarding packet between two ports, then A,B are different functions.
> Otherwise, A,B are different devices if forwarding packets between two
> physical NIC device. Is it right?
> The OS is built on bare-metal hardware, no kvm, no xen, no VT.

OK, so we already gave you your answer:  for same device different
function there's unlikely to be a platform problem (even with IOVA
devices, it would be the device causing the problem, not the platform).
For different devices, whether it works is platform dependent.  The
problem platforms will mostly be those designed for virtualisation which
use iommus for isolation.

James

Re: 【Question】Whether it's legal to enable same physical DMA memory mapped for different NIC device?

[Don Dutile]

On 01/05/2012 07:40 AM, Yanfei Wang wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 11:59 PM, James Bottomley
> <James.Bottomley@hansenpartnership.com>  wrote:
>> On Wed, 2012-01-04 at 10:44 +0800, Yanfei Wang wrote:
>>> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 4:33 AM, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
>>> <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>  wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Dec 07, 2011 at 10:16:40PM +0800, ustc.mail wrote:
>>>>> Dear all,
>>>>>
>>>>> In NIC driver, to eliminate the  overhead of dma_map_single() for DMA
>>>>> packet data,  we have statically allocated huge DMA memory buffer ring
>>>>> at once instead of calling dma_map_single() per packet.  Considering
>>>>> to further reduce the copy overhead between different NIC(port) ring
>>>>> while forwarding, one packet from a input NIC(port) will be
>>>>> transferred to output NIC(port) with no any copy action.
>>>>>
>>>>> To satisfy this requirement, the packet memory should be mapped into
>>>>> input port and unmapped when leaving input port, then mapped into
>>>>> output port and unmapped later.
>>>>>
>>>>> Whether it's legal to map the same DMA memory into input and output
>>>>> port simultaneously? If it's not, then the zero-copy for packet
>>>>> forwarding is not feasible?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Did you ever a get a response about this?
>>> No.
>>
>> This is probably because no-one really understands what you're asking.
>> As far as mapping memory to PCI devices goes, it's the job of the bridge
>> (or the iommu which may or may not be part of the bridge).  A standard
>> iommu tends not to care about devices and functions, so a range once
>> mapped is available to everything behind the bridge.  A more secure
>> virtualisation based iommu (like the on in VT-D) does, and tends to map
>> ranges per device.  I know of none that map per device and function, but
>> maybe there are.
>>
>> Your question reads like you have a range of memory mapped to a PCI
>> device that you want to use for two different purposes, can you do this?
>> to which the answer is that a standard PCI bridge really doesn't care
>> and it all depends on the mechanics of the actual device.  The only
>> wrinkle might be if the two different purposes are on two separate PCI
>> functions of the device and the iommu does care.
>>
>>>>
>>>> Is the output/input port on a seperate device function? Or is it
>>>> just a specific MMIO BAR in your PCI device?
>>>>
>>> Platform: x86, intel nehalem 8Core NUMA, linux 2.6.39, 10G
>>> 82599NIC(two ports per NIC card);
>>> Function: Forwarding packets between different ports.
>>> Targets: Forwarding packets with Zero-Overhead, despite other obstacles.
> Besides hardware and OS presented above, more detailed descriptions as follows,
>
> When IXGBE driver do initialization, DMA Descriptors Ring Buffers are
> allocated statically and mapped as cache coherent. Instead of
> dynamically allocating skb buffers for packet data, to reduce the huge
> overhead from skb memory allocation, huge Packet data buffers are
> pre-allocated and mapped  when driver is loaded. The same strategy  is
> done for RX end and TX end.
> For simple packet forwarding application, one packet from RX should be
> replicated from kernel space to userspace, then copied TX end. Here,
> One packet at least, should be copied twice to accomplish forwarding.
> When doing high performance network application,  the copy action want
> to be reduced. If Zero-copy can be done, that's better. (May be you
> will find that Zero-copy will bring other obstacles, such as memory
> management overhead with high performance. We do not care about it
> temporally.)
> To achieve this goal, a alternative approach is that,  unmapping the
> packets buffer after receiving it from A device, then mapping this
> packet buffer to B device. We hope to reduce the two mapping
> operation, so one packet DMA buffer should be mapped to A device(NIC
> port) as well as B device simultaneously.
> Q: Can this come to ture? Is it legal for mmaping operation at this platform?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Yanfei
>
>
not if the two different devices (82599 VFs or PFs) are in different domains
(assigned to different ((kvm; Konrad:xen?) virtualization guests).
otherwise, I don't see why two devices can't have the same memory page
mapped for DMA use -- a mere matter of multi-device, shared memory utilization! ;-)


>>
>> This still doesn't really provide the information needed to elucidate
>> the question.
>>
>> James
>>
>>
>> --
>> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-arch" in
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Re: 【Question】Whether it's legal to enable same physical DMA memory mapped for different NIC device?

[Yanfei Wang]

On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 2:48 AM, Don Dutile <ddutile@redhat.com> wrote:
> On 01/05/2012 07:40 AM, Yanfei Wang wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 11:59 PM, James Bottomley
>> <James.Bottomley@hansenpartnership.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>> On Wed, 2012-01-04 at 10:44 +0800, Yanfei Wang wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 4:33 AM, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
>>>> <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>  wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Dec 07, 2011 at 10:16:40PM +0800, ustc.mail wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dear all,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In NIC driver, to eliminate the  overhead of dma_map_single() for DMA
>>>>>> packet data,  we have statically allocated huge DMA memory buffer ring
>>>>>> at once instead of calling dma_map_single() per packet.  Considering
>>>>>> to further reduce the copy overhead between different NIC(port) ring
>>>>>> while forwarding, one packet from a input NIC(port) will be
>>>>>> transferred to output NIC(port) with no any copy action.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> To satisfy this requirement, the packet memory should be mapped into
>>>>>> input port and unmapped when leaving input port, then mapped into
>>>>>> output port and unmapped later.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Whether it's legal to map the same DMA memory into input and output
>>>>>> port simultaneously? If it's not, then the zero-copy for packet
>>>>>> forwarding is not feasible?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Did you ever a get a response about this?
>>>>
>>>> No.
>>>
>>>
>>> This is probably because no-one really understands what you're asking.
>>> As far as mapping memory to PCI devices goes, it's the job of the bridge
>>> (or the iommu which may or may not be part of the bridge).  A standard
>>> iommu tends not to care about devices and functions, so a range once
>>> mapped is available to everything behind the bridge.  A more secure
>>> virtualisation based iommu (like the on in VT-D) does, and tends to map
>>> ranges per device.  I know of none that map per device and function, but
>>> maybe there are.
>>>
>>> Your question reads like you have a range of memory mapped to a PCI
>>> device that you want to use for two different purposes, can you do this?
>>> to which the answer is that a standard PCI bridge really doesn't care
>>> and it all depends on the mechanics of the actual device.  The only
>>> wrinkle might be if the two different purposes are on two separate PCI
>>> functions of the device and the iommu does care.
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Is the output/input port on a seperate device function? Or is it
>>>>> just a specific MMIO BAR in your PCI device?
>>>>>
>>>> Platform: x86, intel nehalem 8Core NUMA, linux 2.6.39, 10G
>>>> 82599NIC(two ports per NIC card);
>>>> Function: Forwarding packets between different ports.
>>>> Targets: Forwarding packets with Zero-Overhead, despite other obstacles.
>>
>> Besides hardware and OS presented above, more detailed descriptions as
>> follows,
>>
>> When IXGBE driver do initialization, DMA Descriptors Ring Buffers are
>> allocated statically and mapped as cache coherent. Instead of
>> dynamically allocating skb buffers for packet data, to reduce the huge
>> overhead from skb memory allocation, huge Packet data buffers are
>> pre-allocated and mapped  when driver is loaded. The same strategy  is
>> done for RX end and TX end.
>> For simple packet forwarding application, one packet from RX should be
>> replicated from kernel space to userspace, then copied TX end. Here,
>> One packet at least, should be copied twice to accomplish forwarding.
>> When doing high performance network application,  the copy action want
>> to be reduced. If Zero-copy can be done, that's better. (May be you
>> will find that Zero-copy will bring other obstacles, such as memory
>> management overhead with high performance. We do not care about it
>> temporally.)
>> To achieve this goal, a alternative approach is that,  unmapping the
>> packets buffer after receiving it from A device, then mapping this
>> packet buffer to B device. We hope to reduce the two mapping
>> operation, so one packet DMA buffer should be mapped to A device(NIC
>> port) as well as B device simultaneously.
>> Q: Can this come to ture? Is it legal for mmaping operation at this
>> platform?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Yanfei
>>
>>
> not if the two different devices (82599 VFs or PFs) are in different domains
> (assigned to different ((kvm; Konrad:xen?) virtualization guests).
> otherwise, I don't see why two devices can't have the same memory page
> mapped for DMA use -- a mere matter of multi-device, shared memory
> utilization! ;-)
>
OS is based on directly hardware, no kvm, xen, VT, exsit. That's to
say, it's legal to map same physical DMA buffer into different  PCIe
functions(devices) to eliminate the per-packet-map action.

Thanks
>
>>>
>>> This still doesn't really provide the information needed to elucidate
>>> the question.
>>>
>>> James
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-arch" in
>>> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>>> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>>
>> --
>> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-pci" in
>>
>> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
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>
>