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authorKees Cook <kees+treewide@kernel.org>2026-09-02 15:31:14 -0700
committerKees Cook <kees@kernel.org>2026-09-04 21:37:00 -0700
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treec65086f9bdcd48c6360fb7cb4598bca084da1f32 /Documentation/userspace-api/dma-buf-heaps.rst
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treewide: refresh kmalloc_obj() conversionsgrafted
This is another run of the Coccinelle script for converting kmalloc() family of allocations to kmalloc_obj() via the existing rules in scripts/coccinelle/api/kmalloc_objs.cocci This catches both the set of kmalloc() uses added since the first kmalloc_obj() conversions in v7.0 and adds a large group missed in the first pass due to Coccinelle not interacting well with the cleanup.h scoped_...() family of macros[1]. I worked around this with spatch's "--macro-file" argument to a file with all the scoped_...() macros mapped to Coccinelle's YACFE_ITERATOR[2] as that was the closest viable control flow indicator I could find. Build tested allmodconfig on x86, arm64, arm, loongarch, mips, powerpc, riscv, and s390 with no new warnings. Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/202609021314.8A9C0B8@keescook/ [1] Link: https://github.com/coccinelle/coccinelle/blob/master/standard.h [2] Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <kees+treewide@kernel.org>
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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+==============================
+Allocating dma-buf using heaps
+==============================
+
+Dma-buf Heaps are a way for userspace to allocate dma-buf objects. They are
+typically used to allocate buffers from a specific allocation pool, or to share
+buffers across frameworks.
+
+Heaps
+=====
+
+A heap represents a specific allocator. The Linux kernel currently supports the
+following heaps:
+
+ - The ``system`` heap allocates virtually contiguous, cacheable, buffers.
+
+ - The ``system_cc_shared`` heap allocates virtually contiguous, cacheable,
+ buffers using shared (decrypted) memory. It is only present on
+ confidential computing (CoCo) VMs where memory encryption is active
+ (e.g., AMD SEV, Intel TDX). The allocated pages have the encryption
+ bit cleared, making them accessible for device DMA without TDISP
+ support. On non-CoCo VM configurations, this heap is not registered.
+
+ - The ``default_cma_region`` heap allocates physically contiguous,
+ cacheable, buffers. Only present if a CMA region is present. Such a
+ region is usually created either through the kernel commandline
+ through the ``cma`` parameter, a memory region Device-Tree node with
+ the ``linux,cma-default`` property set, or through the
+ ``CMA_SIZE_MBYTES`` or ``CMA_SIZE_PERCENTAGE`` Kconfig options. Prior
+ to Linux 6.17, its name wasn't stable and could be called
+ ``reserved``, ``linux,cma``, or ``default-pool``, depending on the
+ platform.
+
+ - A heap will be created for each reusable region in the device tree
+ with the ``shared-dma-pool`` compatible, using the full device tree
+ node name as its name. The buffer semantics are identical to
+ ``default-cma-region``.
+
+Naming Convention
+=================
+
+``dma-buf`` heaps name should meet a number of constraints:
+
+- The name must be stable, and must not change from one version to the other.
+ Userspace identifies heaps by their name, so if the names ever change, we
+ would be likely to introduce regressions.
+
+- The name must describe the memory region the heap will allocate from, and
+ must uniquely identify it in a given platform. Since userspace applications
+ use the heap name as the discriminant, it must be able to tell which heap it
+ wants to use reliably if there's multiple heaps.
+
+- The name must not mention implementation details, such as the allocator. The
+ heap driver will change over time, and implementation details when it was
+ introduced might not be relevant in the future.
+
+- The name should describe properties of the buffers that would be allocated.
+ Doing so will make heap identification easier for userspace. Such properties
+ are:
+
+ - ``contiguous`` for physically contiguous buffers;
+
+ - ``protected`` for encrypted buffers not accessible the OS;
+
+- The name may describe intended usage. Doing so will make heap identification
+ easier for userspace applications and users.
+
+For example, assuming a platform with a reserved memory region located
+at the RAM address 0x42000000, intended to allocate video framebuffers,
+physically contiguous, and backed by the CMA kernel allocator, good
+names would be ``memory@42000000-contiguous`` or ``video@42000000``, but
+``cma-video`` wouldn't.