Subject: Re: [PATCH iwl-next v5 5/5] ice: add support for transmitting unreadable frags

From: Simon Horman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 May 2026 16:42:00 +0100

From: 'Simon Horman' <[email-masked]>

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---
ice: add support for transmitting unreadable frags

This commit advertises netmem Tx support in the ice driver. It modifies
the transmit path to conditionally set the buffer type to ICE_TX_BUF_FRAG
only when the fragment is not a net_iov, allowing the driver to skip DMA
unmapping operations for unreadable fragments.

> diff --git a/drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/ice_main.c b/drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/ice_main.c
> index a88f9e3c00771..0e61b38e53a5e 100644
> --- a/drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/ice_main.c
> +++ b/drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/ice_main.c
> @@ -3453,6 +3453,7 @@ static void ice_set_ops(struct ice_vsi *vsi)
>  
>  	netdev->netdev_ops = &ice_netdev_ops;
>  	netdev->queue_mgmt_ops = &ice_queue_mgmt_ops;
> +	netdev->netmem_tx = true;
>  	netdev->udp_tunnel_nic_info = &pf->hw.udp_tunnel_nic;

By setting netmem_tx to true here, the driver accepts packets containing
net_iov fragments. If a net_iov packet exceeds ICE_MAX_BUF_TXD fragments, it
appears it will fall back to linearization in the transmit path.

Since __skb_linearize() uses CPU memory accessors that expect a valid struct
page, will this cause an invalid memory access when skb_frag_page() returns a
net_iov pointer?

Should the driver explicitly drop highly fragmented net_iov packets instead of
attempting to linearize them?

[ ... ]
> diff --git a/drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/ice_txrx.c b/drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/ice_txrx.c
> index 43b4670760273..1d97e2cc2adee 100644
> --- a/drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/ice_txrx.c
> +++ b/drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/ice_txrx.c
> @@ -113,11 +113,17 @@ ice_prgm_fdir_fltr(struct ice_vsi *vsi, struct ice_fltr_desc *fdir_desc,
>  static void
>  ice_unmap_and_free_tx_buf(struct ice_tx_ring *ring, struct ice_tx_buf *tx_buf)
>  {
> -	if (tx_buf->type != ICE_TX_BUF_XDP_TX && dma_unmap_len(tx_buf, len))
> +	switch (tx_buf->type) {
> +	case ICE_TX_BUF_DUMMY:
> +	case ICE_TX_BUF_FRAG:
> +	case ICE_TX_BUF_SKB:
> +	case ICE_TX_BUF_XDP_XMIT:
>  		dma_unmap_page(ring->dev,
>  			       dma_unmap_addr(tx_buf, dma),
>  			       dma_unmap_len(tx_buf, len),
>  			       DMA_TO_DEVICE);
> +		break;
> +	}

Does removing the dma_unmap_len() check alter the safety of the DMA error
recovery path?

If a mapping fails in ice_tx_map(), execution jumps to dma_error and calls
ice_unmap_and_free_tx_buf(). Since the failure happens before
dma_unmap_len_set() updates the descriptor, it seems this might unconditionally
unmap using stale descriptor state. 

Could this result in 0-length unmaps or erroneously unmapping persistent
net_iov memory?

[ ... ]
> @@ -338,12 +344,14 @@ static bool ice_clean_tx_irq(struct ice_tx_ring *tx_ring, int napi_budget)
>  			}
>  
>  			/* unmap any remaining paged data */
> -			if (dma_unmap_len(tx_buf, len)) {
> +			if (tx_buf->type != ICE_TX_BUF_EMPTY) {
>  				dma_unmap_page(tx_ring->dev,
>  					       dma_unmap_addr(tx_buf, dma),
>  					       dma_unmap_len(tx_buf, len),
>  					       DMA_TO_DEVICE);
> +
>  				dma_unmap_len_set(tx_buf, len, 0);
> +				tx_buf->type = ICE_TX_BUF_EMPTY;
>  			}
>  		}

When mapping a net_iov fragment in ice_tx_map(), the descriptor is populated
with the length and DMA address, but tx_buf->type remains ICE_TX_BUF_EMPTY.

Because dma_unmap_len_set(tx_buf, len, 0) is now placed inside the
tx_buf->type != ICE_TX_BUF_EMPTY check, does this skip clearing the len and
dma fields for net_iov descriptors when they are returned to the free pool?

If these descriptor fields are leaked, could they be incorrectly unmapped later
if the descriptor is reused and a subsequent mapping fails?