Re: [PATCH] virtio-spec: Define virtio-mmio registers as LE

From: Marc Zyngier
Date: Fri Mar 01 2013 - 06:21:15 EST


On 01/03/13 10:50, Pawel Moll wrote:
> On Fri, 2013-03-01 at 10:41 +0000, Marc Zyngier wrote:
>> On 14/02/13 10:54, Pawel Moll wrote:
>>> To solve the never-ending confusions between hosts and guests
>>> of different endianess, define all virtio-mmio registers as LE.
>>>
>>> This change should be safe at this stage, because no known
>>> working mixed-endian system exists so there is virtually no
>>> risk of breaking compatibility.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Pawel Moll <pawel.moll@xxxxxxx>
>>
>> Shouldn't we exclude the config space? PCI defines it as guest-endian,
>> and the above tends to indicate that it should be LE with MMIO.
>
> The spec says: "Device-specific configuration space starts at an offset
> 0x100 and is accessed with byte alignment. Its meaning and size depends
> on the device and the driver."
>
> I would hope that "accessed with byte alignment" is enough of a clue in
> this subject, but if you think otherwise I can add a sentence stating
> this explicitly.

Well, it was unclear enough for me to get confused... ;-) It would make
sense to have a wording similar to the one in the PCI section.

> Having said that, Rusty was contemplating enforcing LE config space in
> the new PCI layout...

I wouldn't complain about that, and would like to see a similar thing on
MMIO.

M.
--
Jazz is not dead. It just smells funny...

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