mirror_ubuntu-kernels/Documentation
Nathan Lynch 905b9e4878 powerpc/pseries/papr-sysparm: Expose character device to user space
Until now the papr_sysparm APIs have been kernel-internal. But user
space needs access to PAPR system parameters too. The only method
available to user space today to get or set system parameters is using
sys_rtas() and /dev/mem to pass RTAS-addressable buffers between user
space and firmware. This is incompatible with lockdown and should be
deprecated.

So provide an alternative ABI to user space in the form of a
/dev/papr-sysparm character device with just two ioctl commands (get
and set). The data payloads involved are small enough to fit in the
ioctl argument buffer, making the code relatively simple.

Exposing the system parameters through sysfs has been considered but
it would be too awkward:

* The kernel currently does not have to contain an exhaustive list of
  defined system parameters. This is a convenient property to maintain
  because we don't have to update the kernel whenever a new parameter
  is added to PAPR. Exporting a named attribute in sysfs for each
  parameter would negate this.

* Some system parameters are text-based and some are not.

* Retrieval of at least one system parameter requires input data,
  which a simple read-oriented interface can't support.

Signed-off-by: Nathan Lynch <nathanl@linux.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au>
Link: https://msgid.link/20231212-papr-sys_rtas-vs-lockdown-v6-11-e9eafd0c8c6c@linux.ibm.com
2023-12-13 21:38:21 +11:00
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ABI vhost,virtio,vdpa: features, fixes, cleanups 2023-11-05 09:02:32 -10:00
accel
accounting
admin-guide IOMMU Updates for Linux v6.7 2023-11-09 13:37:28 -08:00
arch - Ignore invalid x2APIC entries in order to not waste per-CPU data 2023-11-19 13:46:17 -08:00
block The number of commits for documentation is not huge this time around, but 2023-11-01 17:11:41 -10:00
bpf bpf: Add __bpf_kfunc_{start,end}_defs macros 2023-11-01 22:33:53 -07:00
cdrom
core-api Many singleton patches against the MM code. The patch series which are 2023-11-02 19:38:47 -10:00
cpu-freq
crypto crypto: ahash - remove support for nonzero alignmask 2023-10-27 18:04:29 +08:00
dev-tools Many singleton patches against the MM code. The patch series which are 2023-11-02 19:38:47 -10:00
devicetree SCSI fixes on 20231118 2023-11-18 15:20:58 -08:00
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hwmon hwmon: (aquacomputer_d5next) Add support for Aquacomputer High Flow USB and MPS Flow 2023-10-29 22:22:48 -07:00
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trace Documentation: tracing: Add a note about argument and retval access 2023-11-10 19:59:03 +09:00
translations media updates for v6.7-rc1 2023-11-06 15:06:06 -08:00
usb USB/Thunderbolt changes for 6.7-rc1 2023-11-03 16:00:42 -10:00
userspace-api powerpc/pseries/papr-sysparm: Expose character device to user space 2023-12-13 21:38:21 +11:00
virt KVM/arm64 updates for 6.7 2023-10-31 16:37:07 -04:00
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