2 Porting Drivers to the New Driver Model
11 Please refer to Documentation/driver-model/*.txt for definitions of
12 various driver types and concepts.
14 Most of the work of porting devices drivers to the new model happens
15 at the bus driver layer. This was intentional, to minimize the
16 negative effect on kernel drivers, and to allow a gradual transition
19 In a nutshell, the driver model consists of a set of objects that can
20 be embedded in larger, bus-specific objects. Fields in these generic
21 objects can replace fields in the bus-specific objects.
23 The generic objects must be registered with the driver model core. By
24 doing so, they will exported via the sysfs filesystem. sysfs can be
27 # mount -t sysfs sysfs /sys
33 Step 0: Read include/linux/device.h for object and function definitions.
35 Step 1: Registering the bus driver.
38 - Define a struct bus_type for the bus driver.
40 struct bus_type pci_bus_type = {
45 - Register the bus type.
46 This should be done in the initialization function for the bus type,
47 which is usually the module_init(), or equivalent, function.
49 static int __init pci_driver_init(void)
51 return bus_register(&pci_bus_type);
54 subsys_initcall(pci_driver_init);
57 The bus type may be unregistered (if the bus driver may be compiled
58 as a module) by doing:
60 bus_unregister(&pci_bus_type);
63 - Export the bus type for others to use.
65 Other code may wish to reference the bus type, so declare it in a
66 shared header file and export the symbol.
68 From include/linux/pci.h:
70 extern struct bus_type pci_bus_type;
73 From file the above code appears in:
75 EXPORT_SYMBOL(pci_bus_type);
79 - This will cause the bus to show up in /sys/bus/pci/ with two
80 subdirectories: 'devices' and 'drivers'.
82 # tree -d /sys/bus/pci/
89 Step 2: Registering Devices.
91 struct device represents a single device. It mainly contains metadata
92 describing the relationship the device has to other entities.
95 - Embed a struct device in the bus-specific device type.
100 struct device dev; /* Generic device interface */
104 It is recommended that the generic device not be the first item in
105 the struct to discourage programmers from doing mindless casts
106 between the object types. Instead macros, or inline functions,
107 should be created to convert from the generic object type.
110 #define to_pci_dev(n) container_of(n, struct pci_dev, dev)
114 static inline struct pci_dev * to_pci_dev(struct kobject * kobj)
116 return container_of(n, struct pci_dev, dev);
119 This allows the compiler to verify type-safety of the operations
120 that are performed (which is Good).
123 - Initialize the device on registration.
125 When devices are discovered or registered with the bus type, the
126 bus driver should initialize the generic device. The most important
127 things to initialize are the bus_id, parent, and bus fields.
129 The bus_id is an ASCII string that contains the device's address on
130 the bus. The format of this string is bus-specific. This is
131 necessary for representing devices in sysfs.
133 parent is the physical parent of the device. It is important that
134 the bus driver sets this field correctly.
136 The driver model maintains an ordered list of devices that it uses
137 for power management. This list must be in order to guarantee that
138 devices are shutdown before their physical parents, and vice versa.
139 The order of this list is determined by the parent of registered
142 Also, the location of the device's sysfs directory depends on a
143 device's parent. sysfs exports a directory structure that mirrors
144 the device hierarchy. Accurately setting the parent guarantees that
145 sysfs will accurately represent the hierarchy.
147 The device's bus field is a pointer to the bus type the device
148 belongs to. This should be set to the bus_type that was declared
149 and initialized before.
151 Optionally, the bus driver may set the device's name and release
154 The name field is an ASCII string describing the device, like
156 "ATI Technologies Inc Radeon QD"
158 The release field is a callback that the driver model core calls
159 when the device has been removed, and all references to it have
160 been released. More on this in a moment.
163 - Register the device.
165 Once the generic device has been initialized, it can be registered
166 with the driver model core by doing:
168 device_register(&dev->dev);
170 It can later be unregistered by doing:
172 device_unregister(&dev->dev);
174 This should happen on buses that support hotpluggable devices.
175 If a bus driver unregisters a device, it should not immediately free
176 it. It should instead wait for the driver model core to call the
177 device's release method, then free the bus-specific object.
178 (There may be other code that is currently referencing the device
179 structure, and it would be rude to free the device while that is
183 When the device is registered, a directory in sysfs is created.
184 The PCI tree in sysfs looks like:
206 Also, symlinks are created in the bus's 'devices' directory
207 that point to the device's directory in the physical hierarchy.
209 /sys/bus/pci/devices/
210 |-- 00:00.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:00.0
211 |-- 00:01.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:01.0
212 |-- 00:02.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:02.0
213 |-- 00:1e.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:1e.0
214 |-- 00:1f.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:1f.0
215 |-- 00:1f.1 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:1f.1
216 |-- 00:1f.2 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:1f.2
217 |-- 00:1f.3 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:1f.3
218 |-- 00:1f.5 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:1f.5
219 |-- 01:00.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:01.0/01:00.0
220 |-- 02:1f.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:02.0/02:1f.0
221 |-- 03:00.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:02.0/02:1f.0/03:00.0
222 `-- 04:04.0 -> ../../../devices/pci0/00:1e.0/04:04.0
226 Step 3: Registering Drivers.
228 struct device_driver is a simple driver structure that contains a set
229 of operations that the driver model core may call.
232 - Embed a struct device_driver in the bus-specific driver.
234 Just like with devices, do something like:
238 struct device_driver driver;
242 - Initialize the generic driver structure.
244 When the driver registers with the bus (e.g. doing pci_register_driver()),
245 initialize the necessary fields of the driver: the name and bus
249 - Register the driver.
251 After the generic driver has been initialized, call
253 driver_register(&drv->driver);
255 to register the driver with the core.
257 When the driver is unregistered from the bus, unregister it from the
260 driver_unregister(&drv->driver);
262 Note that this will block until all references to the driver have
263 gone away. Normally, there will not be any.
266 - Sysfs representation.
268 Drivers are exported via sysfs in their bus's 'driver's directory.
271 /sys/bus/pci/drivers/
279 Step 4: Define Generic Methods for Drivers.
281 struct device_driver defines a set of operations that the driver model
282 core calls. Most of these operations are probably similar to
283 operations the bus already defines for drivers, but taking different
286 It would be difficult and tedious to force every driver on a bus to
287 simultaneously convert their drivers to generic format. Instead, the
288 bus driver should define single instances of the generic methods that
289 forward call to the bus-specific drivers. For instance:
292 static int pci_device_remove(struct device * dev)
294 struct pci_dev * pci_dev = to_pci_dev(dev);
295 struct pci_driver * drv = pci_dev->driver;
299 drv->remove(pci_dev);
300 pci_dev->driver = NULL;
306 The generic driver should be initialized with these methods before it
309 /* initialize common driver fields */
310 drv->driver.name = drv->name;
311 drv->driver.bus = &pci_bus_type;
312 drv->driver.probe = pci_device_probe;
313 drv->driver.resume = pci_device_resume;
314 drv->driver.suspend = pci_device_suspend;
315 drv->driver.remove = pci_device_remove;
317 /* register with core */
318 driver_register(&drv->driver);
321 Ideally, the bus should only initialize the fields if they are not
322 already set. This allows the drivers to implement their own generic
326 Step 5: Support generic driver binding.
328 The model assumes that a device or driver can be dynamically
329 registered with the bus at any time. When registration happens,
330 devices must be bound to a driver, or drivers must be bound to all
331 devices that it supports.
333 A driver typically contains a list of device IDs that it supports. The
334 bus driver compares these IDs to the IDs of devices registered with it.
335 The format of the device IDs, and the semantics for comparing them are
336 bus-specific, so the generic model does attempt to generalize them.
338 Instead, a bus may supply a method in struct bus_type that does the
341 int (*match)(struct device * dev, struct device_driver * drv);
343 match should return positive value if the driver supports the device,
344 and zero otherwise. It may also return error code (for example
345 -EPROBE_DEFER) if determining that given driver supports the device is
348 When a device is registered, the bus's list of drivers is iterated
349 over. bus->match() is called for each one until a match is found.
351 When a driver is registered, the bus's list of devices is iterated
352 over. bus->match() is called for each device that is not already
355 When a device is successfully bound to a driver, device->driver is
356 set, the device is added to a per-driver list of devices, and a
357 symlink is created in the driver's sysfs directory that points to the
358 device's physical directory:
360 /sys/bus/pci/drivers/
362 | `-- 00:0b.0 -> ../../../../devices/pci0/00:0b.0
365 | `-- 00:00.0 -> ../../../../devices/pci0/00:00.0
367 | `-- 00:0c.0 -> ../../../../devices/pci0/00:0c.0
371 This driver binding should replace the existing driver binding
372 mechanism the bus currently uses.
375 Step 6: Supply a hotplug callback.
377 Whenever a device is registered with the driver model core, the
378 userspace program /sbin/hotplug is called to notify userspace.
379 Users can define actions to perform when a device is inserted or
382 The driver model core passes several arguments to userspace via
383 environment variables, including
385 - ACTION: set to 'add' or 'remove'
386 - DEVPATH: set to the device's physical path in sysfs.
388 A bus driver may also supply additional parameters for userspace to
389 consume. To do this, a bus must implement the 'hotplug' method in
392 int (*hotplug) (struct device *dev, char **envp,
393 int num_envp, char *buffer, int buffer_size);
395 This is called immediately before /sbin/hotplug is executed.
398 Step 7: Cleaning up the bus driver.
400 The generic bus, device, and driver structures provide several fields
401 that can replace those defined privately to the bus driver.
405 struct bus_type contains a list of all devices registered with the bus
406 type. This includes all devices on all instances of that bus type.
407 An internal list that the bus uses may be removed, in favor of using
410 The core provides an iterator to access these devices.
412 int bus_for_each_dev(struct bus_type * bus, struct device * start,
413 void * data, int (*fn)(struct device *, void *));
418 struct bus_type also contains a list of all drivers registered with
419 it. An internal list of drivers that the bus driver maintains may
420 be removed in favor of using the generic one.
422 The drivers may be iterated over, like devices:
424 int bus_for_each_drv(struct bus_type * bus, struct device_driver * start,
425 void * data, int (*fn)(struct device_driver *, void *));
428 Please see drivers/base/bus.c for more information.
433 struct bus_type contains an rwsem that protects all core accesses to
434 the device and driver lists. This can be used by the bus driver
435 internally, and should be used when accessing the device or driver
436 lists the bus maintains.
439 - Device and driver fields.
441 Some of the fields in struct device and struct device_driver duplicate
442 fields in the bus-specific representations of these objects. Feel free
443 to remove the bus-specific ones and favor the generic ones. Note
444 though, that this will likely mean fixing up all the drivers that
445 reference the bus-specific fields (though those should all be 1-line