[PATCH 0/8] Device::drvdata() and driver/driver interaction (auxiliary)

Danilo Krummrich
2025-10-20T22:35:33Z

tl;dr:

Implement a safe Device<Bound>::drvdata() accessor (used for driver to
driver interactions) based on the auxiliary bus.

This provides a way to derive a driver's device private data when
serving as a parent in a driver hierarchy, such as a driver utilizing
the auxiliary bus.

Please have a look at patch 8 ("samples: rust: auxiliary: illustrate
driver interaction") to see how it turns out.

--

Full cover letter:

In C dev_get_drvdata() has specific requirements under which it is valid
to access the returned pointer. That is, drivers have to ensure that

(1) for the duration the returned pointer is accessed the driver is
bound and remains to be bound to the corresponding device,

(2) the returned void * is treated according to the driver's private
data type, i.e. according to what has been passed to
dev_set_drvdata().

In Rust, (1) can be ensured by simply requiring the Bound device
context, i.e. provide the drvdata() method for Device<Bound> only.

For (2) we would usually make the device type generic over the driver
type, e.g. Device<T: Driver>, where <T as Driver>::Data is the type of
the driver's private data.

However, a device does not have a driver type known at compile time and
may be bound to multiple drivers throughout its lifetime.

Hence, in order to be able to provide a safe accessor for the driver's
device private data, we have to do the type check on runtime.

This is achieved by letting a driver assert the expected type, which is
then compared to a type hash stored in struct device_private when
dev_set_drvdata() is called [2].

Example:

// `dev` is a `&Device<Bound>`.
let data = dev.drvdata::<SampleDriver>()?;

There are two aspects to note:

(1) Technically, the same check could be achieved by comparing the
struct device_driver pointer of struct device with the struct
device_driver pointer of the driver struct (e.g. struct
pci_driver).

However, this would - in addition the pointer comparison - require
to tie back the private driver data type to the struct
device_driver pointer of the driver struct to prove correctness.

Besides that, accessing the driver struct (stored in the module
structure) isn't trivial and would result into horrible code and
API ergonomics.

(2) Having a direct accessor to the driver's private data is not
commonly required (at least in Rust): Bus callback methods already
provide access to the driver's device private data through a &self
argument, while other driver entry points such as IRQs,
workqueues, timers, IOCTLs, etc. have their own private data with
separate ownership and lifetime.

In other words, a driver's device private data is only relevant
for driver model contexts (such a file private is only relevant
for file contexts).

Having that said, the motivation for accessing the driver's device
private data with Device<Bound>::drvdata() are interactions between
drivers. For instance, when an auxiliary driver calls back into its
parent, the parent has to be capable to derive its private data from the
corresponding device (i.e. the parent of the auxiliary device).

Therefore this patch series also contains the corresponding patches for
the auxiliary bus abstraction, i.e. guarantee that the auxiliary
device's parent is guaranteed to be bound when the auxiliary device
itself is guaranteed to be bound, plus the corresponding
Device<Bound>::parent() method.

Finally, illustrate how things turn out by updating the auxiliary sample
driver.

Similarly, the same thing can be done for PCI virtual function drivers
calling back into the corresponding physical function driver or MFD.

The former (PCI PF/VF interaction) will be addressed by a separate patch
series. Both, auxiliary and PCI PF/VF is required by the Nova project.

A branch containing the series can be found in [1].

[1] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/dakr/linux.git/log/?h=drvdata
[2] Type hash (TypeId) stored in struct device_private:

The Rust type stored in struct device_private could be replaced
by a dedicated (and transparent) private pointer (e.g.
struct device_private::rust).

While I'm not overly concerned about the extra allocation (not a
hot path at all), I still wanted to try to store it directly in
struct device_private, see how it turns out and gather opinions.

Additionally, I don't expect any additional Rust specific
private data to be required. But even if, changing things up to
use a separate transparent allocation in the future is trivial.

Danilo Krummrich (8):
rust: device: narrow the generic of drvdata_obtain()
rust: device: introduce Device::drvdata()
rust: auxiliary: consider auxiliary devices always have a parent
rust: auxiliary: unregister on parent device unbind
rust: auxiliary: move parent() to impl Device
rust: auxiliary: implement parent() for Device<Bound>
samples: rust: auxiliary: misc cleanup of ParentDriver::connect()
samples: rust: auxiliary: illustrate driver interaction

drivers/base/base.h | 16 ++++
drivers/gpu/drm/nova/file.rs | 2 +-
drivers/gpu/nova-core/driver.rs | 8 +-
rust/bindings/bindings_helper.h | 6 ++
rust/kernel/auxiliary.rs | 108 ++++++++++++++++----------
rust/kernel/device.rs | 83 ++++++++++++++++++--
rust/kernel/pci.rs | 2 +-
rust/kernel/platform.rs | 2 +-
rust/kernel/usb.rs | 4 +-
samples/rust/rust_driver_auxiliary.rs | 44 +++++++----
10 files changed, 207 insertions(+), 68 deletions(-)

base-commit: b782675fc7b5ba0124e26cab935a5285278c8278
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2.51.0