Re: USB transfer_buffer allocations on 64bit systems

From: Andi Kleen
Date: Mon Apr 12 2010 - 05:00:10 EST


Alan Stern <stern@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>>
>> The fix is to use usb_buffer_alloc() for that purpose which ensures
>> memory that is suitable for DMA. And on x86_64, this also means that the
>> upper 32 bits of the address returned are all 0's.
>
> That is not a good fix. usb_buffer_alloc() provides coherent memory,
> which is not what we want. I believe the correct fix is to specify the
> GFP_DMA32 flag in the kzalloc() call.

The traditional way to handle this is to leave it to swiotlb in
pci_map_*. pci_map_* is needed anyways if you run with a IOMMU.

Also note at least on x86 systems coherent memory is the same as non coherent
memory. And GFP_DMA32 is a x86 specific flag, doesn't necessarily
do any good anywhere else.

So if you add x86isms anyways you could as well use dma_alloc_coherent()
directly which is actually better at this than a simple GFP_DMA32
and as a bonus handles the IOMMUs correctly too.

Or just use GFP_KERNEL and pci_map_* later.

-Andi

--
ak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx -- Speaking for myself only.
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