xref: /kernel/linux/linux-6.6/Documentation/admin-guide/gpio/gpio-aggregator.rst

.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-only

GPIO Aggregator
===============

The GPIO Aggregator provides a mechanism to aggregate GPIOs, and expose them as
a new gpio_chip.  This supports the following use cases.


Aggregating GPIOs using Sysfs
-----------------------------

GPIO controllers are exported to userspace using /dev/gpiochip* character
devices.  Access control to these devices is provided by standard UNIX file
system permissions, on an all-or-nothing basis: either a GPIO controller is
accessible for a user, or it is not.

The GPIO Aggregator provides access control for a set of one or more GPIOs, by
aggregating them into a new gpio_chip, which can be assigned to a group or user
using standard UNIX file ownership and permissions.  Furthermore, this
simplifies and hardens exporting GPIOs to a virtual machine, as the VM can just
grab the full GPIO controller, and no longer needs to care about which GPIOs to
grab and which not, reducing the attack surface.

Aggregated GPIO controllers are instantiated and destroyed by writing to
write-only attribute files in sysfs.

    /sys/bus/platform/drivers/gpio-aggregator/

	"new_device" ...
		Userspace may ask the kernel to instantiate an aggregated GPIO
		controller by writing a string describing the GPIOs to
		aggregate to the "new_device" file, using the format

		.. code-block:: none

		    [<gpioA>] [<gpiochipB> <offsets>] ...

		Where:

		    "<gpioA>" ...
			    is a GPIO line name,

		    "<gpiochipB>" ...
			    is a GPIO chip label, and

		    "<offsets>" ...
			    is a comma-separated list of GPIO offsets and/or
			    GPIO offset ranges denoted by dashes.

		Example: Instantiate a new GPIO aggregator by aggregating GPIO
		line 19 of "e6052000.gpio" and GPIO lines 20-21 of
		"e6050000.gpio" into a new gpio_chip:

		.. code-block:: sh

		    $ echo 'e6052000.gpio 19 e6050000.gpio 20-21' > new_device

	"delete_device" ...
		Userspace may ask the kernel to destroy an aggregated GPIO
		controller after use by writing its device name to the
		"delete_device" file.

		Example: Destroy the previously-created aggregated GPIO
		controller, assumed to be "gpio-aggregator.0":

		.. code-block:: sh

		    $ echo gpio-aggregator.0 > delete_device


Generic GPIO Driver
-------------------

The GPIO Aggregator can also be used as a generic driver for a simple
GPIO-operated device described in DT, without a dedicated in-kernel driver.
This is useful in industrial control, and is not unlike e.g. spidev, which
allows the user to communicate with an SPI device from userspace.

Binding a device to the GPIO Aggregator is performed either by modifying the
gpio-aggregator driver, or by writing to the "driver_override" file in Sysfs.

Example: If "door" is a GPIO-operated device described in DT, using its own
compatible value::

	door {
		compatible = "myvendor,mydoor";

		gpios = <&gpio2 19 GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH>,
			<&gpio2 20 GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW>;
		gpio-line-names = "open", "lock";
	};

it can be bound to the GPIO Aggregator by either:

1. Adding its compatible value to ``gpio_aggregator_dt_ids[]``,
2. Binding manually using "driver_override":

.. code-block:: sh

    $ echo gpio-aggregator > /sys/bus/platform/devices/door/driver_override
    $ echo door > /sys/bus/platform/drivers/gpio-aggregator/bind

After that, a new gpiochip "door" has been created:

.. code-block:: sh

    $ gpioinfo door
    gpiochip12 - 2 lines:
	    line   0:       "open"       unused   input  active-high
	    line   1:       "lock"       unused   input  active-high