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

Gary Guo
2026-03-26T13:37:57Z

On Wed Mar 25, 2026 at 5:18 PM GMT, Danilo Krummrich wrote:
> On Wed Mar 25, 2026 at 2:09 PM CET, Gary Guo wrote:
>> This only gives you fixed size, though. If you want the same type that supports
>> both a fixed size and dynamic size, then a generic that is either array/slice is
>> the way to go.
>
> [...]
>
>> You still can use `io_project!(handle, [start..end]?)` to do the bounds
>> checking. But as you said, the benefit might be minimal.
>
> I think we shouldn't overengineer this for now, and wait for actual use-cases
> that require any of that.
>
> The only thing we need right now in practice is an API that takes the size and
> returns a handle to the buffer of this size exposing the DMA address that is
> subsequently passed to the device without further modification.
>
> So, if we want to re-use dma::Coherent<T>, we can just do this
>
> pub struct CoherentHandle(Coherent<[u8]>);
>
> impl CoherentHandle {
> pub fn alloc_with_attrs(
> dev: &device::Device<Bound>,
> size: usize,
> gfp_flags: kernel::alloc::Flags,
> dma_attrs: Attrs,
> ) -> Result<Self> {
> let dma_attrs = dma_attrs | Attrs(bindings::DMA_ATTR_NO_KERNEL_MAPPING);
> Coherent::<u8>::alloc_slice_with_attrs(dev, size, gfp_flags, dma_attrs).map(Self)
> }
>
> #[inline]
> pub fn alloc(
> dev: &device::Device<Bound>,
> size: usize,
> gfp_flags: kernel::alloc::Flags,
> ) -> Result<Self> {
> Self::alloc_with_attrs(dev, size, gfp_flags, Attrs(0))
> }
>
> #[inline]
> pub fn dma_handle(&self) -> DmaAddress {
> self.0.dma_handle()
> }
>
> #[inline]
> pub fn size(&self) -> usize {
> self.0.size()
> }
> }
>
> and add a guarantee that Coherent::alloc_with_attrs() and Coherent::drop() never
> touch the cpu_ptr.

Hmm, it sounds like we *could* actually have `Coherent` support `Drop` types and
have `drop()` run the destructor for it. We don't need to for `FromBytes +
AsBytes`, but I think we'd better not have that as a guarantee.

So the original approach that you have is better.

Best,
Gary