On a ARM based system running Linux, I have a device that's memory mapped to a physical address. From a user space program where all addresses are virtual, how can I read content from this address?
You can map a device file to a user process memory using mmap(2)
system call. Usually, device files are mappings of physical memory to the file system.
Otherwise, you have to write a kernel module which creates such a file or provides a way to map the needed memory to a user process.
Another way is remapping parts of /dev/mem
to a user memory.
Edit:
Example of mmaping /dev/mem
(this program must have access to /dev/mem
, e.g. have root rights):
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
if (argc < 3) {
printf("Usage: %s <phys_addr> <offset>\n", argv[0]);
return 0;
}
off_t offset = strtoul(argv[1], NULL, 0);
size_t len = strtoul(argv[2], NULL, 0);
// Truncate offset to a multiple of the page size, or mmap will fail.
size_t pagesize = sysconf(_SC_PAGE_SIZE);
off_t page_base = (offset / pagesize) * pagesize;
off_t page_offset = offset - page_base;
int fd = open("/dev/mem", O_SYNC);
unsigned char *mem = mmap(NULL, page_offset + len, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE, fd, page_base);
if (mem == MAP_FAILED) {
perror("Can't map memory");
return -1;
}
size_t i;
for (i = 0; i < len; ++i)
printf("%02x ", (int)mem[page_offset + i]);
return 0;
}