Subject: Re: [PATCH RFCv1 1/3] PCI: Allow ATS to be always on for CXL.cache capable devices

From: Jason Gunthorpe <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2026 09:03:15 -0400

On Wed, Jan 21, 2026 at 10:03:07AM +0000, Jonathan Cameron wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Jan 2026 08:01:36 +0000
> "Tian, Kevin" <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> > +Dan. I recalled an offline discussion in which he raised concern on
> > having the kernel blindly enable ATS for cxl.cache device instead of
> > creating a knob for admin to configure from userspace (in case
> > security is viewed more important than functionality, upon allowing
> > DMA to read data out of CPU caches)...
> > 
> 
> +CC Linux-cxl

A cxl.cache device supporting ATS will automatically enable ATS today
if the kernel option to enable translation is set.

Even if the device is marked untrusted by the PCI layer (eg an
external port).

Yes this is effectively a security issue, but it is not really a CXL
specific problem.

We might perfer to not enable ATS for untrusted devices and then fail to
load drivers for "ats always on" cases.

Or maybe we can enable one of the ATS security features someday,
though I wonder if those work for CXL..

Jason