1.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later 2 3============================ 4WMI driver development guide 5============================ 6 7The WMI subsystem provides a rich driver API for implementing WMI drivers, 8documented at Documentation/driver-api/wmi.rst. This document will serve 9as an introductory guide for WMI driver writers using this API. It is supposed 10to be a successor to the original LWN article [1]_ which deals with WMI drivers 11using the deprecated GUID-based WMI interface. 12 13Obtaining WMI device information 14-------------------------------- 15 16Before developing an WMI driver, information about the WMI device in question 17must be obtained. The `lswmi <https://pypi.org/project/lswmi>`_ utility can be 18used to extract detailed WMI device information using the following command: 19 20:: 21 22 lswmi -V 23 24The resulting output will contain information about all WMI devices available on 25a given machine, plus some extra information. 26 27In order to find out more about the interface used to communicate with a WMI device, 28the `bmfdec <https://github.com/pali/bmfdec>`_ utilities can be used to decode 29the Binary MOF (Managed Object Format) information used to describe WMI devices. 30The ``wmi-bmof`` driver exposes this information to userspace, see 31Documentation/wmi/devices/wmi-bmof.rst. 32 33In order to retrieve the decoded Binary MOF information, use the following command (requires root): 34 35:: 36 37 ./bmf2mof /sys/bus/wmi/devices/05901221-D566-11D1-B2F0-00A0C9062910[-X]/bmof 38 39Sometimes, looking at the disassembled ACPI tables used to describe the WMI device 40helps in understanding how the WMI device is supposed to work. The path of the ACPI 41method associated with a given WMI device can be retrieved using the ``lswmi`` utility 42as mentioned above. 43 44If you are attempting to port a driver to Linux and are working on a Windows 45system, `WMIExplorer <https://github.com/vinaypamnani/wmie2>`_ can be useful 46for inspecting available WMI methods and invoking them directly. 47 48Basic WMI driver structure 49-------------------------- 50 51The basic WMI driver is build around the struct wmi_driver, which is then bound 52to matching WMI devices using a struct wmi_device_id table: 53 54:: 55 56 static const struct wmi_device_id foo_id_table[] = { 57 /* Only use uppercase letters! */ 58 { "936DA01F-9ABD-4D9D-80C7-02AF85C822A8", NULL }, 59 { } 60 }; 61 MODULE_DEVICE_TABLE(wmi, foo_id_table); 62 63 static struct wmi_driver foo_driver = { 64 .driver = { 65 .name = "foo", 66 .probe_type = PROBE_PREFER_ASYNCHRONOUS, /* recommended */ 67 .pm = pm_sleep_ptr(&foo_dev_pm_ops), /* optional */ 68 }, 69 .id_table = foo_id_table, 70 .probe = foo_probe, 71 .remove = foo_remove, /* optional, devres is preferred */ 72 .shutdown = foo_shutdown, /* optional, called during shutdown */ 73 .notify_new = foo_notify, /* optional, for event handling */ 74 .no_notify_data = true, /* optional, enables events containing no additional data */ 75 .no_singleton = true, /* required for new WMI drivers */ 76 }; 77 module_wmi_driver(foo_driver); 78 79The probe() callback is called when the WMI driver is bound to a matching WMI device. Allocating 80driver-specific data structures and initialising interfaces to other kernel subsystems should 81normally be done in this function. 82 83The remove() callback is then called when the WMI driver is unbound from a WMI device. In order 84to unregister interfaces to other kernel subsystems and release resources, devres should be used. 85This simplifies error handling during probe and often allows to omit this callback entirely, see 86Documentation/driver-api/driver-model/devres.rst for details. 87 88The shutdown() callback is called during shutdown, reboot or kexec. Its sole purpose is to disable 89the WMI device and put it in a well-known state for the WMI driver to pick up later after reboot 90or kexec. Most WMI drivers need no special shutdown handling and can thus omit this callback. 91 92Please note that new WMI drivers are required to be able to be instantiated multiple times, 93and are forbidden from using any deprecated GUID-based or ACPI-based WMI functions. This means 94that the WMI driver should be prepared for the scenario that multiple matching WMI devices are 95present on a given machine. 96 97Because of this, WMI drivers should use the state container design pattern as described in 98Documentation/driver-api/driver-model/design-patterns.rst. 99 100.. warning:: Using both GUID-based and non-GUID-based functions for querying WMI data blocks and 101 handling WMI events simultaneously on the same device is guaranteed to corrupt the 102 WMI device state and might lead to erratic behaviour. 103 104WMI method drivers 105------------------ 106 107WMI drivers can call WMI device methods using wmidev_invoke_method(). For each WMI method 108invocation the WMI driver needs to provide the instance number and the method ID, as well as 109a buffer with the method arguments and optionally a buffer for the results. 110 111The layout of said buffers is device-specific and described by the Binary MOF data associated 112with a given WMI device. Said Binary MOF data also describes the method ID of a given WMI method 113with the ``WmiMethodId`` qualifier. WMI devices exposing WMI methods usually expose only a single 114instance (instance number 0), but in theory can expose multiple instances as well. In such a case 115the number of instances can be retrieved using wmidev_instance_count(). 116 117Take a look at drivers/platform/x86/intel/wmi/thunderbolt.c for an example WMI method driver. 118 119WMI data block drivers 120---------------------- 121 122WMI drivers can query WMI data blocks using wmidev_query_block(), the layout of the returned 123buffer is again device-specific and described by the Binary MOF data. Some WMI data blocks are 124also writeable and can be set using wmidev_set_block(). The number of data block instances can 125again be retrieved using wmidev_instance_count(). 126 127Take a look at drivers/platform/x86/intel/wmi/sbl-fw-update.c for an example WMI data block driver. 128 129WMI event drivers 130----------------- 131 132WMI drivers can receive WMI events via the notify_new() callback inside the struct wmi_driver. 133The WMI subsystem will then take care of setting up the WMI event accordingly. Please note that 134the layout of the buffer passed to this callback is device-specific, and freeing of the buffer 135is done by the WMI subsystem itself, not the driver. 136 137The WMI driver core will take care that the notify_new() callback will only be called after 138the probe() callback has been called, and that no events are being received by the driver 139right before and after calling its remove() or shutdown() callback. 140 141However WMI driver developers should be aware that multiple WMI events can be received concurrently, 142so any locking (if necessary) needs to be provided by the WMI driver itself. 143 144In order to be able to receive WMI events containing no additional event data, 145the ``no_notify_data`` flag inside struct wmi_driver should be set to ``true``. 146 147Take a look at drivers/platform/x86/xiaomi-wmi.c for an example WMI event driver. 148 149Exchanging data with the WMI driver core 150---------------------------------------- 151 152WMI drivers can exchange data with the WMI driver core using struct wmi_buffer. The internal 153structure of those buffers is device-specific and only known by the WMI driver. Because of this 154the WMI driver itself is responsible for parsing and validating the data received from its 155WMI device. 156 157The structure of said buffers is described by the MOF data associated with the WMI device in 158question. When such a buffer contains multiple data items it usually makes sense to define a 159C structure and use it during parsing. Since the WMI driver core guarantees that all buffers 160received from a WMI device are aligned on an 8-byte boundary, WMI drivers can simply perform 161a cast between the WMI buffer data and this C structure. 162 163This however should only be done after the size of the buffer was verified to be large enough 164to hold the whole C structure. WMI drivers should reject undersized buffers as they are usually 165sent by the WMI device to signal an internal error. Oversized buffers however should be accepted 166to emulate the behavior of the Windows WMI implementation. 167 168When defining a C structure for parsing WMI buffers the alignment of the data items should be 169respected. This is especially important for 64-bit integers as those have different alignments 170on 64-bit (8-byte alignment) and 32-bit (4-byte alignment) architectures. It is thus a good idea 171to manually specify the alignment of such data items or mark the whole structure as packed when 172appropriate. Integer data items in general are little-endian integers and should be marked as 173such using ``__le64`` and friends. When parsing WMI string data items the struct wmi_string should 174be used as WMI strings have a different layout than C strings. 175 176See Documentation/wmi/acpi-interface.rst for more information regarding the binary format 177of WMI data items. 178 179Handling multiple WMI devices at once 180------------------------------------- 181 182There are many cases of firmware vendors using multiple WMI devices to control different aspects 183of a single physical device. This can make developing WMI drivers complicated, as those drivers 184might need to communicate with each other to present a unified interface to userspace. 185 186On such case involves a WMI event device which needs to talk to a WMI data block device or WMI 187method device upon receiving an WMI event. In such a case, two WMI drivers should be developed, 188one for the WMI event device and one for the other WMI device. 189 190The WMI event device driver has only one purpose: to receive WMI events, validate any additional 191event data and invoke a notifier chain. The other WMI driver adds itself to this notifier chain 192during probing and thus gets notified every time a WMI event is received. This WMI driver might 193then process the event further for example by using an input device. 194 195For other WMI device constellations, similar mechanisms can be used. 196 197Things to avoid 198--------------- 199 200When developing WMI drivers, there are a couple of things which should be avoided: 201 202- usage of the deprecated GUID-based WMI interface which uses GUIDs instead of WMI device structs 203- usage of the deprecated ACPI-based WMI interface which uses ACPI objects instead of plain buffers 204- bypassing of the WMI subsystem when talking to WMI devices 205- WMI drivers which cannot be instantiated multiple times. 206 207Many older WMI drivers violate one or more points from this list. The reason for 208this is that the WMI subsystem evolved significantly over the last two decades, 209so there is a lot of legacy cruft inside older WMI drivers. 210 211New WMI drivers are also required to conform to the linux kernel coding style as specified in 212Documentation/process/coding-style.rst. The checkpatch utility can catch many common coding style 213violations, you can invoke it with the following command: 214 215:: 216 217 ./scripts/checkpatch.pl --strict <path to driver file> 218 219References 220========== 221 222.. [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/391230/ 223