L1 Block Drivers EN

Language: English ｜ L1-Block-Drivers

L1 guide: block drivers

Register a storage device so the whole system (VFS, partitions, fs utilities) sees it.

The surface

drivers/block/driver_block_blk.h (17 declarations; the numbered 8):

driver_block_register(name, ops, ctx)     -> device id
driver_block_read(dev, lba, count, buf)   -> bytes read / <0
driver_block_write(dev, lba, count, buf)  -> bytes written / <0
driver_block_flush(dev)                   -> 0 / <0
driver_block_set_ops(dev, ops)

Plus the family init entries that bind a discovered PCI device to a driver: driver_block_ahci_init(pci), driver_block_nvme_init(pci), driver_block_ata_dma_init(pci).

Implementing a driver

1. Probe your bus (PCI class match via driver_pci_find_class_mask).
2. Map BARs, reset the device, negotiate features.
3. Build an ops struct (read/write/flush in sector units) and driver_block_register("myd0", &ops, ctx) - the per-instance name is what dskstat shows.
4. Fail cleanly: refusal at probe with a message beats a silent half-registration.

Rules with teeth

• DMA bounds: 32-bit-mask devices must reject above-4GiB addresses at probe AND per transfer (the xHCI precedent).
• Alignment: ATA-DMA PRDT alignment rides on the heap's 32-byte header guarantee.
• The tests that gate you: fstest, disk_rw_test, the per-driver *_test commands.