Hi, Is it mandatory for a device to write data in an area DMA mapped DMA_FROM_DEVICE? Can't the device just "ignore" that mapping - i.e. not write anything - and driver should expect original data to be found in that location (since it was not touched / written to by the device)? [Let's leave cache coherency aside, and consider "original data" to be in RAM.]
I am asking this since I am seeing what seems to be an inconsistent behavior / semantics between cases when swiotlb bouncing is used and when it's not. Specifically, the context is: 1. driver prepares a scatterlist with several entries and performs a dma_map_sg() with direction FROM_DEVICE 2. device decides there's no need to write into the buffer pointed by first scatterlist entry and skips it (writing into subsequent buffers) 3. driver is notified the device finished processing and dma unmaps the scatterlist When swiotlb bounce is used, the buffer pointed to by first scatterlist entry is corrupted. That's because swiotlb implementation expects the device to write something into that buffer, however the device logic is "whatever was previously in that buffer should be used" (2. above). For FROM_DEVICE direction: -swiotlb_tbl_map_single() does not copy data from original location to swiotlb if (!(attrs & DMA_ATTR_SKIP_CPU_SYNC) && (dir == DMA_TO_DEVICE || dir == DMA_BIDIRECTIONAL)) swiotlb_bounce(orig_addr, tlb_addr, size, DMA_TO_DEVICE); -swiotlb_tbl_unmap_single() copies data from swiotlb to original location if (orig_addr != INVALID_PHYS_ADDR && !(attrs & DMA_ATTR_SKIP_CPU_SYNC) && ((dir == DMA_FROM_DEVICE) || (dir == DMA_BIDIRECTIONAL))) swiotlb_bounce(orig_addr, tlb_addr, size, DMA_FROM_DEVICE); and when device did not write anything (as in current situation), it overwrites original data with zeros In case swiotlb bounce is not used and device does not write into the FROM_DEVICE streaming DMA maping, the original data is available. Could you please clarify whether: -I am missing something obvious OR -the DMA API documentation should be updated - to mandate for device writes into FROM_DEVICE mappings) OR -the swiotlb implementation should be updated - to copy data from original location irrespective of DMA mapping direction? Thanks, Horia