Re: [PATCH 2/2] rust: dma: add CoherentHandle for DMA allocations without kernel mapping

Danilo Krummrich
2026-03-22T15:21:07Z

On Sun Mar 22, 2026 at 3:52 PM CET, Alexandre Courbot wrote:
> On Sun Mar 22, 2026 at 2:27 AM JST, Danilo Krummrich wrote:
>> Add CoherentHandle, an opaque DMA allocation type for buffers that are
>> only ever accessed by hardware. Unlike Coherent<T>, it does not provide
>> CPU access to the allocated memory.
>>
>> CoherentHandle implicitly sets DMA_ATTR_NO_KERNEL_MAPPING and stores the
>> value returned by dma_alloc_attrs() as an opaque handle
>> (NonNull<c_void>) rather than a typed pointer, since with this flag the
>> C API returns an opaque cookie (e.g. struct page *), not a CPU pointer
>> to the allocated memory.
>>
>> Only the DMA bus address is exposed to drivers; the opaque handle is
>> used solely to free the allocation on drop.
>>
>> This commit is for reference only; there is currently no in-tree user.
>
> nova-core's sysmem flush memory page would be a prime candidate to use
> this, I'll add this patch as a dependency to [1] and use it.

Sure, please do.

> Reviewed-by: Alexandre Courbot <acourbot@nvidia.com>
>
> (one question below)
>
> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260321-b4-nova-dma-removal-v1-0-5cf18a75ff64@nvidia.com/
>
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Danilo Krummrich <dakr@kernel.org>
>> ---
>> rust/kernel/dma.rs | 119 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>> 1 file changed, 119 insertions(+)
>>
>> diff --git a/rust/kernel/dma.rs b/rust/kernel/dma.rs
>> index 9e0c9ff91cba..fa30793c798d 100644
>> --- a/rust/kernel/dma.rs
>> +++ b/rust/kernel/dma.rs
>> @@ -1011,6 +1011,125 @@ fn drop(&mut self) {
>> // can be sent to another thread.
>> unsafe impl<T: KnownSize + Send + ?Sized> Send for Coherent<T> {}
>>
>> +/// An opaque DMA allocation without a kernel virtual mapping.
>> +///
>> +/// Unlike [`Coherent`], a `CoherentHandle` does not provide CPU access to the allocated memory.
>> +/// The allocation is always performed with `DMA_ATTR_NO_KERNEL_MAPPING`, meaning no kernel
>> +/// virtual mapping is created for the buffer. The value returned by the C API as the CPU
>> +/// address is an opaque handle used only to free the allocation.
>> +///
>> +/// This is useful for buffers that are only ever accessed by hardware.
>> +///
>> +/// # Invariants
>> +///
>> +/// - `cpu_handle` holds the opaque handle returned by `dma_alloc_attrs` with
>> +/// `DMA_ATTR_NO_KERNEL_MAPPING` set, and is only valid for passing back to `dma_free_attrs`.
>> +/// - `dma_handle` is the corresponding bus address for device DMA.
>> +/// - `size` is the allocation size in bytes as passed to `dma_alloc_attrs`.
>> +/// - `dma_attrs` contains the attributes used for the allocation, always including
>> +/// `DMA_ATTR_NO_KERNEL_MAPPING`.
>
> Quick question for my erudition: I understand all the invariants are
> referred to by `drop`, but some of them (`size` notably) really read
> more like doccomments. Do we need to be that exhaustive every time we
> call a C API?

We have the same on dma::Coherent / dma::CoherentAllocation, as the destructor
relies on all those to be invariant.

I don't think we have to do this for every C API call, but in this case the
question is what the safety justification in the destructor would look like if
we'd drop those invariants.