| 		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->async) { | 
 | 		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); | 
 | } |