1====================
  2How FunctionFS works
  3====================
  4
  5Overview
  6========
  7
  8From kernel point of view it is just a composite function with some
  9unique behaviour.  It may be added to an USB configuration only after
 10the user space driver has registered by writing descriptors and
 11strings (the user space program has to provide the same information
 12that kernel level composite functions provide when they are added to
 13the configuration).
 14
 15This in particular means that the composite initialisation functions
 16may not be in init section (ie. may not use the __init tag).
 17
 18From user space point of view it is a file system which when
 19mounted provides an "ep0" file.  User space driver need to
 20write descriptors and strings to that file.  It does not need
 21to worry about endpoints, interfaces or strings numbers but
 22simply provide descriptors such as if the function was the
 23only one (endpoints and strings numbers starting from one and
 24interface numbers starting from zero).  The FunctionFS changes
 25them as needed also handling situation when numbers differ in
 26different configurations.
 27
 28For more information about FunctionFS descriptors see :doc:`functionfs-desc`
 29
 30When descriptors and strings are written "ep#" files appear
 31(one for each declared endpoint) which handle communication on
 32a single endpoint.  Again, FunctionFS takes care of the real
 33numbers and changing of the configuration (which means that
 34"ep1" file may be really mapped to (say) endpoint 3 (and when
 35configuration changes to (say) endpoint 2)).  "ep0" is used
 36for receiving events and handling setup requests.
 37
 38When all files are closed the function disables itself.
 39
 40What I also want to mention is that the FunctionFS is designed in such
 41a way that it is possible to mount it several times so in the end
 42a gadget could use several FunctionFS functions. The idea is that
 43each FunctionFS instance is identified by the device name used
 44when mounting.
 45
 46One can imagine a gadget that has an Ethernet, MTP and HID interfaces
 47where the last two are implemented via FunctionFS.  On user space
 48level it would look like this::
 49
 50  $ insmod g_ffs.ko idVendor=<ID> iSerialNumber=<string> functions=mtp,hid
 51  $ mkdir /dev/ffs-mtp && mount -t functionfs mtp /dev/ffs-mtp
 52  $ ( cd /dev/ffs-mtp && mtp-daemon ) &
 53  $ mkdir /dev/ffs-hid && mount -t functionfs hid /dev/ffs-hid
 54  $ ( cd /dev/ffs-hid && hid-daemon ) &
 55
 56On kernel level the gadget checks ffs_data->dev_name to identify
 57whether its FunctionFS is designed for MTP ("mtp") or HID ("hid").
 58
 59If no "functions" module parameters is supplied, the driver accepts
 60just one function with any name.
 61
 62When "functions" module parameter is supplied, only functions
 63with listed names are accepted. In particular, if the "functions"
 64parameter's value is just a one-element list, then the behaviour
 65is similar to when there is no "functions" at all; however,
 66only a function with the specified name is accepted.
 67
 68The gadget is registered only after all the declared function
 69filesystems have been mounted and USB descriptors of all functions
 70have been written to their ep0's.
 71
 72Conversely, the gadget is unregistered after the first USB function
 73closes its endpoints.
 74
 75DMABUF interface
 76================
 77
 78FunctionFS additionally supports a DMABUF based interface, where the
 79userspace can attach DMABUF objects (externally created) to an endpoint,
 80and subsequently use them for data transfers.
 81
 82A userspace application can then use this interface to share DMABUF
 83objects between several interfaces, allowing it to transfer data in a
 84zero-copy fashion, for instance between IIO and the USB stack.
 85
 86As part of this interface, three new IOCTLs have been added. These three
 87IOCTLs have to be performed on a data endpoint (ie. not ep0). They are:
 88
 89  ``FUNCTIONFS_DMABUF_ATTACH(int)``
 90    Attach the DMABUF object, identified by its file descriptor, to the
 91    data endpoint. Returns zero on success, and a negative errno value
 92    on error.
 93
 94  ``FUNCTIONFS_DMABUF_DETACH(int)``
 95    Detach the given DMABUF object, identified by its file descriptor,
 96    from the data endpoint. Returns zero on success, and a negative
 97    errno value on error. Note that closing the endpoint's file
 98    descriptor will automatically detach all attached DMABUFs.
 99
100  ``FUNCTIONFS_DMABUF_TRANSFER(struct usb_ffs_dmabuf_transfer_req *)``
101    Enqueue the previously attached DMABUF to the transfer queue.
102    The argument is a structure that packs the DMABUF's file descriptor,
103    the size in bytes to transfer (which should generally correspond to
104    the size of the DMABUF), and a 'flags' field which is unused
105    for now. Returns zero on success, and a negative errno value on
106    error.