doc: add documentation for mailbox framework

 Some explanations with examples of how to write to implement users
and providers of the mailbox framework.

Signed-off-by: Jassi Brar <jaswinder.singh@linaro.org>

1 files changed, 122 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/mailbox.txt b/Documentation/mailbox.txt
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+                The Common Mailbox Framework
+                Jassi Brar <jaswinder.singh@linaro.org>
+
+ This document aims to help developers write client and controller
+drivers for the API. But before we start, let us note that the
+client (especially) and controller drivers are likely going to be
+very platform specific because the remote firmware is likely to be
+proprietary and implement non-standard protocol. So even if two
+platforms employ, say, PL320 controller, the client drivers can't
+be shared across them. Even the PL320 driver might need to accommodate
+some platform specific quirks. So the API is meant mainly to avoid
+similar copies of code written for each platform. Having said that,
+nothing prevents the remote f/w to also be Linux based and use the
+same api there. However none of that helps us locally because we only
+ever deal at client's protocol level.
+ Some of the choices made during implementation are the result of this
+peculiarity of this "common" framework.
+
+
+
+        Part 1 - Controller Driver (See include/linux/mailbox_controller.h)
+
+ Allocate mbox_controller and the array of mbox_chan.
+Populate mbox_chan_ops, except peek_data() all are mandatory.
+The controller driver might know a message has been consumed
+by the remote by getting an IRQ or polling some hardware flag
+or it can never know (the client knows by way of the protocol).
+The method in order of preference is IRQ -> Poll -> None, which
+the controller driver should set via 'txdone_irq' or 'txdone_poll'
+or neither.
+
+
+        Part 2 - Client Driver (See include/linux/mailbox_client.h)
+
+ The client might want to operate in blocking mode (synchronously
+send a message through before returning) or non-blocking/async mode (submit
+a message and a callback function to the API and return immediately).
+
+
+struct demo_client {
+        struct mbox_client cl;
+        struct mbox_chan *mbox;
+        struct completion c;
+        bool async;
+        /* ... */
+};
+
+/*
+ * This is the handler for data received from remote. The behaviour is purely
+ * dependent upon the protocol. This is just an example.
+ */
+static void message_from_remote(struct mbox_client *cl, void *mssg)
+{
+        struct demo_client *dc = container_of(mbox_client,
+                                                struct demo_client, cl);
+        if (dc->aysnc) {
+                if (is_an_ack(mssg)) {
+                        /* An ACK to our last sample sent */
+                        return; /* Or do something else here */
+                } else { /* A new message from remote */
+                        queue_req(mssg);
+                }
+        } else {
+                /* Remote f/w sends only ACK packets on this channel */
+                return;
+        }
+}
+
+static void sample_sent(struct mbox_client *cl, void *mssg, int r)
+{
+        struct demo_client *dc = container_of(mbox_client,
+                                                struct demo_client, cl);
+        complete(&dc->c);
+}
+
+static void client_demo(struct platform_device *pdev)
+{
+        struct demo_client *dc_sync, *dc_async;
+        /* The controller already knows async_pkt and sync_pkt */
+        struct async_pkt ap;
+        struct sync_pkt sp;
+
+        dc_sync = kzalloc(sizeof(*dc_sync), GFP_KERNEL);
+        dc_async = kzalloc(sizeof(*dc_async), GFP_KERNEL);
+
+        /* Populate non-blocking mode client */
+        dc_async->cl.dev = &pdev->dev;
+        dc_async->cl.rx_callback = message_from_remote;
+        dc_async->cl.tx_done = sample_sent;
+        dc_async->cl.tx_block = false;
+        dc_async->cl.tx_tout = 0; /* doesn't matter here */
+        dc_async->cl.knows_txdone = false; /* depending upon protocol */
+        dc_async->async = true;
+        init_completion(&dc_async->c);
+
+        /* Populate blocking mode client */
+        dc_sync->cl.dev = &pdev->dev;
+        dc_sync->cl.rx_callback = message_from_remote;
+        dc_sync->cl.tx_done = NULL; /* operate in blocking mode */
+        dc_sync->cl.tx_block = true;
+        dc_sync->cl.tx_tout = 500; /* by half a second */
+        dc_sync->cl.knows_txdone = false; /* depending upon protocol */
+        dc_sync->async = false;
+
+        /* ASync mailbox is listed second in 'mboxes' property */
+        dc_async->mbox = mbox_request_channel(&dc_async->cl, 1);
+        /* Populate data packet */
+        /* ap.xxx = 123; etc */
+        /* Send async message to remote */
+        mbox_send_message(dc_async->mbox, &ap);
+
+        /* Sync mailbox is listed first in 'mboxes' property */
+        dc_sync->mbox = mbox_request_channel(&dc_sync->cl, 0);
+        /* Populate data packet */
+        /* sp.abc = 123; etc */
+        /* Send message to remote in blocking mode */
+        mbox_send_message(dc_sync->mbox, &sp);
+        /* At this point 'sp' has been sent */
+
+        /* Now wait for async chan to be done */
+        wait_for_completion(&dc_async->c);
+}