# Device Tree GPIO Naming in OpenBMC Author: Andrew Geissler (geissonator) Primary assignee: Andrew Geissler (geissonator) Other contributors: < None > Created: April 3, 2020 ## Problem Description The Linux kernel has deprecated the use of sysfs to interact with the GPIO subsystem. The replacement is a "descriptor-based" character device interface. [libgpiod][1] is a suite of tools and library implemented in C and C++ which provides an abstraction to this new character device gpio interface. libgpiod provides a feature where you can access gpios by a name given to them in the kernel device tree files. The problem is there are no naming conventions for these GPIO names and if you want userspace code to be able to be consistent across different machines, these names would need to be consistent. ## Background and References The kernel [documentation][2] has a good summary of the GPIO subsystem. The specific field used to name the GPIO's in the DTS is `gpio-line-names`. This [patch][3] shows an example of naming the GPIO's for a system. GPIOs are used for arbitrary things. It's pretty hard to have a coherent naming scheme in the face of a universe of potential use-cases. Scoping the problem down to just the vastness of OpenBMC narrows the possibilities quite a bit and allows the possibility of a naming scheme to emerge. ## Requirements - Ensure common function GPIO's within OpenBMC use the same naming convention ## Proposed Design Below are the standard categories. The "Pattern" in each section describes the naming convention and then the "Defined" portion lists the common GPIO names to be used (when available on an OpenBMC system). This naming convention must be followed for all common GPIO's. This list below includes all common GPIO's within OpenBMC. Any OpenBMC system which provides one of the below GPIO's must name it as listed in this document. This document must be updated as new common GPIO's are added. ### LEDs Pattern: `led-*` Defined: - led-fault - led-identify - led-power - led-sys-boot-status - led-attention - led-hdd-fault - led-rear-fault - led-rear-power - led-rear-id ### Power and Regulators Pattern: `power-*`, `regulator-*` Defined: #### power-button #### power-chassis-control Set to initiate power-on or power-off of the chassis. #### power-chassis-good Indicates the power good state of the chassis. #### regulator-standby-faulted This GPIO value represents the status of standby power regulator fault detection logic. This GPIO is an input only. The status will reflect a regulator non-faulted condition after AC power cycle when no standby power regulator fault condition is present. The status will reflect a standby regulator power faulted condition when an unexpected drop in standby power is detected. ### Buttons Pattern: `*-button` Defined: - power-button ### Presence Pattern: `presence-*` Defined: - presence-ps0 - presence-ps1 - ... - presence-ps`` ### Special These are special case and/or grandfathered in pin names. Defined: #### air-water Indicates whether system is air or water cooled #### factory-reset-toggle The software records the state of this GPIO and checks upon reboot if the state has changed since the last reboot. If it has, it indicates that a factory reset should be performed. ### POWER Specific GPIO's Below are GPIO names specific to the POWER processor based servers. #### FSI Pattern: `fsi-*` Defined: - fsi-mux - fsi-enable - fsi-trans - fsi-clock - fsi-data - fsi-routing #### Special These are special case and/or grandfathered in pin names. Defined: - cfam-reset - checkstop ## Alternatives Considered - Continue to hard code a config file per system type that has the gpio bank and pin number. This removes a dependency on the device tree to have consistent names but adds overhead in supporting each new system. - Have the device tree GPIO names match the hardware schematics and then have another userspace config file that maps between the schematic names and logical pin names. This makes the GPIO to schematic mapping easy but adds an additional layer of work with the userspace config. ## Impacts Need to ensure OpenBMC device trees conform to the above naming conventions. ## Testing Userspace utilization of the GPIO names will provide some testing coverage during CI. [1]: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/libs/libgpiod/libgpiod.git/about/ [2]: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/driver-api/gpio/index.html [3]: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/20200306170218.79698-1-geissonator@yahoo.com/