1 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
3 ==============================
4 How To Write Linux PCI Drivers
5 ==============================
7 :Authors: - Martin Mares <mj@ucw.cz>
8 - Grant Grundler <grundler@parisc-linux.org>
10 The world of PCI is vast and full of (mostly unpleasant) surprises.
11 Since each CPU architecture implements different chip-sets and PCI devices
12 have different requirements (erm, "features"), the result is the PCI support
13 in the Linux kernel is not as trivial as one would wish. This short paper
14 tries to introduce all potential driver authors to Linux APIs for
17 A more complete resource is the third edition of "Linux Device Drivers"
18 by Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, and Greg Kroah-Hartman.
19 LDD3 is available for free (under Creative Commons License) from:
20 https://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/.
22 However, keep in mind that all documents are subject to "bit rot".
23 Refer to the source code if things are not working as described here.
25 Please send questions/comments/patches about Linux PCI API to the
26 "Linux PCI" <linux-pci@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz> mailing list.
29 Structure of PCI drivers
30 ========================
31 PCI drivers "discover" PCI devices in a system via pci_register_driver().
32 Actually, it's the other way around. When the PCI generic code discovers
33 a new device, the driver with a matching "description" will be notified.
34 Details on this below.
36 pci_register_driver() leaves most of the probing for devices to
37 the PCI layer and supports online insertion/removal of devices [thus
38 supporting hot-pluggable PCI, CardBus, and Express-Card in a single driver].
39 pci_register_driver() call requires passing in a table of function
40 pointers and thus dictates the high level structure of a driver.
42 Once the driver knows about a PCI device and takes ownership, the
43 driver generally needs to perform the following initialization:
46 - Request MMIO/IOP resources
47 - Set the DMA mask size (for both coherent and streaming DMA)
48 - Allocate and initialize shared control data (pci_allocate_coherent())
49 - Access device configuration space (if needed)
50 - Register IRQ handler (request_irq())
51 - Initialize non-PCI (i.e. LAN/SCSI/etc parts of the chip)
52 - Enable DMA/processing engines
54 When done using the device, and perhaps the module needs to be unloaded,
55 the driver needs to take the follow steps:
57 - Disable the device from generating IRQs
58 - Release the IRQ (free_irq())
59 - Stop all DMA activity
60 - Release DMA buffers (both streaming and coherent)
61 - Unregister from other subsystems (e.g. scsi or netdev)
62 - Release MMIO/IOP resources
65 Most of these topics are covered in the following sections.
66 For the rest look at LDD3 or <linux/pci.h> .
68 If the PCI subsystem is not configured (CONFIG_PCI is not set), most of
69 the PCI functions described below are defined as inline functions either
70 completely empty or just returning an appropriate error codes to avoid
71 lots of ifdefs in the drivers.
74 pci_register_driver() call
75 ==========================
77 PCI device drivers call ``pci_register_driver()`` during their
78 initialization with a pointer to a structure describing the driver
79 (``struct pci_driver``):
81 .. kernel-doc:: include/linux/pci.h
82 :functions: pci_driver
84 The ID table is an array of ``struct pci_device_id`` entries ending with an
85 all-zero entry. Definitions with static const are generally preferred.
87 .. kernel-doc:: include/linux/mod_devicetable.h
88 :functions: pci_device_id
90 Most drivers only need ``PCI_DEVICE()`` or ``PCI_DEVICE_CLASS()`` to set up
91 a pci_device_id table.
93 New PCI IDs may be added to a device driver pci_ids table at runtime
96 echo "vendor device subvendor subdevice class class_mask driver_data" > \
97 /sys/bus/pci/drivers/{driver}/new_id
99 All fields are passed in as hexadecimal values (no leading 0x).
100 The vendor and device fields are mandatory, the others are optional. Users
101 need pass only as many optional fields as necessary:
103 - subvendor and subdevice fields default to PCI_ANY_ID (FFFFFFFF)
104 - class and classmask fields default to 0
105 - driver_data defaults to 0UL.
107 Note that driver_data must match the value used by any of the pci_device_id
108 entries defined in the driver. This makes the driver_data field mandatory
109 if all the pci_device_id entries have a non-zero driver_data value.
111 Once added, the driver probe routine will be invoked for any unclaimed
112 PCI devices listed in its (newly updated) pci_ids list.
114 When the driver exits, it just calls pci_unregister_driver() and the PCI layer
115 automatically calls the remove hook for all devices handled by the driver.
118 "Attributes" for driver functions/data
119 --------------------------------------
121 Please mark the initialization and cleanup functions where appropriate
122 (the corresponding macros are defined in <linux/init.h>):
124 ====== =================================================
125 __init Initialization code. Thrown away after the driver
127 __exit Exit code. Ignored for non-modular drivers.
128 ====== =================================================
130 Tips on when/where to use the above attributes:
131 - The module_init()/module_exit() functions (and all
132 initialization functions called _only_ from these)
133 should be marked __init/__exit.
135 - Do not mark the struct pci_driver.
137 - Do NOT mark a function if you are not sure which mark to use.
138 Better to not mark the function than mark the function wrong.
141 How to find PCI devices manually
142 ================================
144 PCI drivers should have a really good reason for not using the
145 pci_register_driver() interface to search for PCI devices.
146 The main reason PCI devices are controlled by multiple drivers
147 is because one PCI device implements several different HW services.
148 E.g. combined serial/parallel port/floppy controller.
150 A manual search may be performed using the following constructs:
152 Searching by vendor and device ID::
154 struct pci_dev *dev = NULL;
155 while (dev = pci_get_device(VENDOR_ID, DEVICE_ID, dev))
156 configure_device(dev);
158 Searching by class ID (iterate in a similar way)::
160 pci_get_class(CLASS_ID, dev)
162 Searching by both vendor/device and subsystem vendor/device ID::
164 pci_get_subsys(VENDOR_ID,DEVICE_ID, SUBSYS_VENDOR_ID, SUBSYS_DEVICE_ID, dev).
166 You can use the constant PCI_ANY_ID as a wildcard replacement for
167 VENDOR_ID or DEVICE_ID. This allows searching for any device from a
168 specific vendor, for example.
170 These functions are hotplug-safe. They increment the reference count on
171 the pci_dev that they return. You must eventually (possibly at module unload)
172 decrement the reference count on these devices by calling pci_dev_put().
175 Device Initialization Steps
176 ===========================
178 As noted in the introduction, most PCI drivers need the following steps
179 for device initialization:
182 - Request MMIO/IOP resources
183 - Set the DMA mask size (for both coherent and streaming DMA)
184 - Allocate and initialize shared control data (pci_allocate_coherent())
185 - Access device configuration space (if needed)
186 - Register IRQ handler (request_irq())
187 - Initialize non-PCI (i.e. LAN/SCSI/etc parts of the chip)
188 - Enable DMA/processing engines.
190 The driver can access PCI config space registers at any time.
191 (Well, almost. When running BIST, config space can go away...but
192 that will just result in a PCI Bus Master Abort and config reads
193 will return garbage).
196 Enable the PCI device
197 ---------------------
198 Before touching any device registers, the driver needs to enable
199 the PCI device by calling pci_enable_device(). This will:
201 - wake up the device if it was in suspended state,
202 - allocate I/O and memory regions of the device (if BIOS did not),
203 - allocate an IRQ (if BIOS did not).
206 pci_enable_device() can fail! Check the return value.
209 OS BUG: we don't check resource allocations before enabling those
210 resources. The sequence would make more sense if we called
211 pci_request_resources() before calling pci_enable_device().
212 Currently, the device drivers can't detect the bug when two
213 devices have been allocated the same range. This is not a common
214 problem and unlikely to get fixed soon.
216 This has been discussed before but not changed as of 2.6.19:
217 https://lore.kernel.org/r/20060302180025.GC28895@flint.arm.linux.org.uk/
220 pci_set_master() will enable DMA by setting the bus master bit
221 in the PCI_COMMAND register. It also fixes the latency timer value if
222 it's set to something bogus by the BIOS. pci_clear_master() will
223 disable DMA by clearing the bus master bit.
225 If the PCI device can use the PCI Memory-Write-Invalidate transaction,
226 call pci_set_mwi(). This enables the PCI_COMMAND bit for Mem-Wr-Inval
227 and also ensures that the cache line size register is set correctly.
228 Check the return value of pci_set_mwi() as not all architectures
229 or chip-sets may support Memory-Write-Invalidate. Alternatively,
230 if Mem-Wr-Inval would be nice to have but is not required, call
231 pci_try_set_mwi() to have the system do its best effort at enabling
235 Request MMIO/IOP resources
236 --------------------------
237 Memory (MMIO), and I/O port addresses should NOT be read directly
238 from the PCI device config space. Use the values in the pci_dev structure
239 as the PCI "bus address" might have been remapped to a "host physical"
240 address by the arch/chip-set specific kernel support.
242 See Documentation/driver-api/io-mapping.rst for how to access device registers
245 The device driver needs to call pci_request_region() to verify
246 no other device is already using the same address resource.
247 Conversely, drivers should call pci_release_region() AFTER
248 calling pci_disable_device().
249 The idea is to prevent two devices colliding on the same address range.
252 See OS BUG comment above. Currently (2.6.19), The driver can only
253 determine MMIO and IO Port resource availability _after_ calling
256 Generic flavors of pci_request_region() are request_mem_region()
257 (for MMIO ranges) and request_region() (for IO Port ranges).
258 Use these for address resources that are not described by "normal" PCI
261 Also see pci_request_selected_regions() below.
264 Set the DMA mask size
265 ---------------------
267 If anything below doesn't make sense, please refer to
268 :doc:`/core-api/dma-api`. This section is just a reminder that
269 drivers need to indicate DMA capabilities of the device and is not
270 an authoritative source for DMA interfaces.
272 While all drivers should explicitly indicate the DMA capability
273 (e.g. 32 or 64 bit) of the PCI bus master, devices with more than
274 32-bit bus master capability for streaming data need the driver
275 to "register" this capability by calling pci_set_dma_mask() with
276 appropriate parameters. In general this allows more efficient DMA
277 on systems where System RAM exists above 4G _physical_ address.
279 Drivers for all PCI-X and PCIe compliant devices must call
280 pci_set_dma_mask() as they are 64-bit DMA devices.
282 Similarly, drivers must also "register" this capability if the device
283 can directly address "consistent memory" in System RAM above 4G physical
284 address by calling pci_set_consistent_dma_mask().
285 Again, this includes drivers for all PCI-X and PCIe compliant devices.
286 Many 64-bit "PCI" devices (before PCI-X) and some PCI-X devices are
287 64-bit DMA capable for payload ("streaming") data but not control
291 Setup shared control data
292 -------------------------
293 Once the DMA masks are set, the driver can allocate "consistent" (a.k.a. shared)
294 memory. See :doc:`/core-api/dma-api` for a full description of
295 the DMA APIs. This section is just a reminder that it needs to be done
296 before enabling DMA on the device.
299 Initialize device registers
300 ---------------------------
301 Some drivers will need specific "capability" fields programmed
302 or other "vendor specific" register initialized or reset.
303 E.g. clearing pending interrupts.
308 While calling request_irq() is the last step described here,
309 this is often just another intermediate step to initialize a device.
310 This step can often be deferred until the device is opened for use.
312 All interrupt handlers for IRQ lines should be registered with IRQF_SHARED
313 and use the devid to map IRQs to devices (remember that all PCI IRQ lines
316 request_irq() will associate an interrupt handler and device handle
317 with an interrupt number. Historically interrupt numbers represent
318 IRQ lines which run from the PCI device to the Interrupt controller.
319 With MSI and MSI-X (more below) the interrupt number is a CPU "vector".
321 request_irq() also enables the interrupt. Make sure the device is
322 quiesced and does not have any interrupts pending before registering
323 the interrupt handler.
325 MSI and MSI-X are PCI capabilities. Both are "Message Signaled Interrupts"
326 which deliver interrupts to the CPU via a DMA write to a Local APIC.
327 The fundamental difference between MSI and MSI-X is how multiple
328 "vectors" get allocated. MSI requires contiguous blocks of vectors
329 while MSI-X can allocate several individual ones.
331 MSI capability can be enabled by calling pci_alloc_irq_vectors() with the
332 PCI_IRQ_MSI and/or PCI_IRQ_MSIX flags before calling request_irq(). This
333 causes the PCI support to program CPU vector data into the PCI device
334 capability registers. Many architectures, chip-sets, or BIOSes do NOT
335 support MSI or MSI-X and a call to pci_alloc_irq_vectors with just
336 the PCI_IRQ_MSI and PCI_IRQ_MSIX flags will fail, so try to always
337 specify PCI_IRQ_LEGACY as well.
339 Drivers that have different interrupt handlers for MSI/MSI-X and
340 legacy INTx should chose the right one based on the msi_enabled
341 and msix_enabled flags in the pci_dev structure after calling
342 pci_alloc_irq_vectors.
344 There are (at least) two really good reasons for using MSI:
346 1) MSI is an exclusive interrupt vector by definition.
347 This means the interrupt handler doesn't have to verify
348 its device caused the interrupt.
350 2) MSI avoids DMA/IRQ race conditions. DMA to host memory is guaranteed
351 to be visible to the host CPU(s) when the MSI is delivered. This
352 is important for both data coherency and avoiding stale control data.
353 This guarantee allows the driver to omit MMIO reads to flush
356 See drivers/infiniband/hw/mthca/ or drivers/net/tg3.c for examples
363 When a PCI device driver is being unloaded, most of the following
364 steps need to be performed:
366 - Disable the device from generating IRQs
367 - Release the IRQ (free_irq())
368 - Stop all DMA activity
369 - Release DMA buffers (both streaming and consistent)
370 - Unregister from other subsystems (e.g. scsi or netdev)
371 - Disable device from responding to MMIO/IO Port addresses
372 - Release MMIO/IO Port resource(s)
375 Stop IRQs on the device
376 -----------------------
377 How to do this is chip/device specific. If it's not done, it opens
378 the possibility of a "screaming interrupt" if (and only if)
379 the IRQ is shared with another device.
381 When the shared IRQ handler is "unhooked", the remaining devices
382 using the same IRQ line will still need the IRQ enabled. Thus if the
383 "unhooked" device asserts IRQ line, the system will respond assuming
384 it was one of the remaining devices asserted the IRQ line. Since none
385 of the other devices will handle the IRQ, the system will "hang" until
386 it decides the IRQ isn't going to get handled and masks the IRQ (100,000
387 iterations later). Once the shared IRQ is masked, the remaining devices
388 will stop functioning properly. Not a nice situation.
390 This is another reason to use MSI or MSI-X if it's available.
391 MSI and MSI-X are defined to be exclusive interrupts and thus
392 are not susceptible to the "screaming interrupt" problem.
397 Once the device is quiesced (no more IRQs), one can call free_irq().
398 This function will return control once any pending IRQs are handled,
399 "unhook" the drivers IRQ handler from that IRQ, and finally release
400 the IRQ if no one else is using it.
403 Stop all DMA activity
404 ---------------------
405 It's extremely important to stop all DMA operations BEFORE attempting
406 to deallocate DMA control data. Failure to do so can result in memory
407 corruption, hangs, and on some chip-sets a hard crash.
409 Stopping DMA after stopping the IRQs can avoid races where the
410 IRQ handler might restart DMA engines.
412 While this step sounds obvious and trivial, several "mature" drivers
413 didn't get this step right in the past.
418 Once DMA is stopped, clean up streaming DMA first.
419 I.e. unmap data buffers and return buffers to "upstream"
420 owners if there is one.
422 Then clean up "consistent" buffers which contain the control data.
424 See :doc:`/core-api/dma-api` for details on unmapping interfaces.
427 Unregister from other subsystems
428 --------------------------------
429 Most low level PCI device drivers support some other subsystem
430 like USB, ALSA, SCSI, NetDev, Infiniband, etc. Make sure your
431 driver isn't losing resources from that other subsystem.
432 If this happens, typically the symptom is an Oops (panic) when
433 the subsystem attempts to call into a driver that has been unloaded.
436 Disable Device from responding to MMIO/IO Port addresses
437 --------------------------------------------------------
438 io_unmap() MMIO or IO Port resources and then call pci_disable_device().
439 This is the symmetric opposite of pci_enable_device().
440 Do not access device registers after calling pci_disable_device().
443 Release MMIO/IO Port Resource(s)
444 --------------------------------
445 Call pci_release_region() to mark the MMIO or IO Port range as available.
446 Failure to do so usually results in the inability to reload the driver.
449 How to access PCI config space
450 ==============================
452 You can use `pci_(read|write)_config_(byte|word|dword)` to access the config
453 space of a device represented by `struct pci_dev *`. All these functions return
454 0 when successful or an error code (`PCIBIOS_...`) which can be translated to a
455 text string by pcibios_strerror. Most drivers expect that accesses to valid PCI
458 If you don't have a struct pci_dev available, you can call
459 `pci_bus_(read|write)_config_(byte|word|dword)` to access a given device
460 and function on that bus.
462 If you access fields in the standard portion of the config header, please
463 use symbolic names of locations and bits declared in <linux/pci.h>.
465 If you need to access Extended PCI Capability registers, just call
466 pci_find_capability() for the particular capability and it will find the
467 corresponding register block for you.
470 Other interesting functions
471 ===========================
473 ============================= ================================================
474 pci_get_domain_bus_and_slot() Find pci_dev corresponding to given domain,
475 bus and slot and number. If the device is
476 found, its reference count is increased.
477 pci_set_power_state() Set PCI Power Management state (0=D0 ... 3=D3)
478 pci_find_capability() Find specified capability in device's capability
480 pci_resource_start() Returns bus start address for a given PCI region
481 pci_resource_end() Returns bus end address for a given PCI region
482 pci_resource_len() Returns the byte length of a PCI region
483 pci_set_drvdata() Set private driver data pointer for a pci_dev
484 pci_get_drvdata() Return private driver data pointer for a pci_dev
485 pci_set_mwi() Enable Memory-Write-Invalidate transactions.
486 pci_clear_mwi() Disable Memory-Write-Invalidate transactions.
487 ============================= ================================================
493 When displaying PCI device names to the user (for example when a driver wants
494 to tell the user what card has it found), please use pci_name(pci_dev).
496 Always refer to the PCI devices by a pointer to the pci_dev structure.
497 All PCI layer functions use this identification and it's the only
498 reasonable one. Don't use bus/slot/function numbers except for very
499 special purposes -- on systems with multiple primary buses their semantics
500 can be pretty complex.
502 Don't try to turn on Fast Back to Back writes in your driver. All devices
503 on the bus need to be capable of doing it, so this is something which needs
504 to be handled by platform and generic code, not individual drivers.
507 Vendor and device identifications
508 =================================
510 Do not add new device or vendor IDs to include/linux/pci_ids.h unless they
511 are shared across multiple drivers. You can add private definitions in
512 your driver if they're helpful, or just use plain hex constants.
514 The device IDs are arbitrary hex numbers (vendor controlled) and normally used
515 only in a single location, the pci_device_id table.
517 Please DO submit new vendor/device IDs to https://pci-ids.ucw.cz/.
518 There's a mirror of the pci.ids file at https://github.com/pciutils/pciids.
524 There are several functions which you might come across when trying to
525 port an old driver to the new PCI interface. They are no longer present
526 in the kernel as they aren't compatible with hotplug or PCI domains or
529 ================= ===========================================
530 pci_find_device() Superseded by pci_get_device()
531 pci_find_subsys() Superseded by pci_get_subsys()
532 pci_find_slot() Superseded by pci_get_domain_bus_and_slot()
533 pci_get_slot() Superseded by pci_get_domain_bus_and_slot()
534 ================= ===========================================
536 The alternative is the traditional PCI device driver that walks PCI
537 device lists. This is still possible but discouraged.
540 MMIO Space and "Write Posting"
541 ==============================
543 Converting a driver from using I/O Port space to using MMIO space
544 often requires some additional changes. Specifically, "write posting"
545 needs to be handled. Many drivers (e.g. tg3, acenic, sym53c8xx_2)
546 already do this. I/O Port space guarantees write transactions reach the PCI
547 device before the CPU can continue. Writes to MMIO space allow the CPU
548 to continue before the transaction reaches the PCI device. HW weenies
549 call this "Write Posting" because the write completion is "posted" to
550 the CPU before the transaction has reached its destination.
552 Thus, timing sensitive code should add readl() where the CPU is
553 expected to wait before doing other work. The classic "bit banging"
554 sequence works fine for I/O Port space::
556 for (i = 8; --i; val >>= 1) {
557 outb(val & 1, ioport_reg); /* write bit */
561 The same sequence for MMIO space should be::
563 for (i = 8; --i; val >>= 1) {
564 writeb(val & 1, mmio_reg); /* write bit */
565 readb(safe_mmio_reg); /* flush posted write */
569 It is important that "safe_mmio_reg" not have any side effects that
570 interferes with the correct operation of the device.
572 Another case to watch out for is when resetting a PCI device. Use PCI
573 Configuration space reads to flush the writel(). This will gracefully
574 handle the PCI master abort on all platforms if the PCI device is
575 expected to not respond to a readl(). Most x86 platforms will allow
576 MMIO reads to master abort (a.k.a. "Soft Fail") and return garbage
577 (e.g. ~0). But many RISC platforms will crash (a.k.a."Hard Fail").