Xen devel - Jan 2013 - Re: [PATCH] xen/swiotlb: Exchange to contiguous memory for map_sg hook

>>> "Xu, Dongxiao" <dongxiao.xu@intel.com> 01/07/13
8:17 AM >>>
> From: Jan Beulich [mailto:JBeulich@suse.com]
> >>> On 20.12.12 at 02:23, "Xu, Dongxiao"
<dongxiao.xu@intel.com> wrote:
>> > Take the libata case as an example, the static DMA buffer locates
>> > (dev->link->ap->sector_buf , here we use Data Structure B
in the graph) in
>> > the following structure:
>> >
>> > -------------------------------------Page boundary
>> > <Data Structure A>
>> > <Data Structure B>
>> > -------------------------------------Page boundary
>> > <Data Structure B (cross page)>
>> > <Data Structure C>
>> > -------------------------------------Page boundary
>> >
>> > Where Structure B is our DMA target.
>> >
>> > For Data Structure B, we didn''t care about the
simultaneous access, either
>> > lock or sync function will take care of it.
>> > What we are not sure is "read/write of A and C from other
processor". As we
>> > will have memory copy for the pages, and at the same time, other
CPU may
>> > access A/C.
>> 
>> The question is whether what libata does here is valid in the first
>> place - fill an SG list entry with something that crosses a page
>> boundary and is not a compound page.
>
>To make sure I understand you correctly, so do you mean the correct fix
should be
> applied to libata driver, and make sure it DMA from/to correct place (for
example,
> some memory allocated by DMA API), but not such certain field in a static
structure?
Yes.

Jan