On Tue, 15 Jun 2021 15:35:09 +0200
Christoph Hellwig [off-list ref] wrote:

This is my alternative take on this series from Jason:

https://lore.kernel.org/dri-devel/87czsszi9i.fsf@redhat.com/T/ (local)

The mdev/vfio parts are exactly the same, but this solves the driver core
changes for the direct probing without the in/out flag that Greg hated,
which cause a little more work, but probably make the result better.

Original decription from Jason below:

The mdev bus's core part for managing the lifecycle of devices is mostly
as one would expect for a driver core bus subsystem.

However instead of having a normal 'struct device_driver' and binding the
actual mdev drivers through the standard driver core mechanisms it open
codes this with the struct mdev_parent_ops and provides a single driver
that shims between the VFIO core's struct vfio_device and the actual
device driver.

Instead, allow mdev drivers implement an actual struct mdev_driver and
directly call vfio_register_group_dev() in the probe() function for the
mdev. Arrange to bind the created mdev_device to the mdev_driver that is
provided by the end driver.

The actual execution flow doesn't change much, eg what was
parent_ops->create is now device_driver->probe and it is called at almost
the exact same time - except under the normal control of the driver core.

Ultimately converting all the drivers unlocks a fair number of additional
VFIO simplifications and cleanups.

Looks like we need an update to
Documentation/driver-api/vfio-mediated-device.rst to go along with
this.

Also, if we're preserving compatibility with the "legacy"
mdev_parent_ops callbacks without deprecating them, does it really make
sense to convert every one of the sample drivers to this new direct
registration?  Thanks,

Alex